Each New Year begins full of hopes and wishes for the 12 months to follow. Some resolutions made will be forgotten by the second week of January while others may be carried out until the next celebration of a fresh start.
While it’s easier said than done, we ought not to rely on the year to turn to set goals of making ourselves better. There is certainly something about leaving failures and unachieved ambitions in the closing year and starting anew. However, in a sense it is very much an excuse (one I am guilty of myself!) that many of us make because we aren’t ready to buckle down and commit to whatever it is that we genuinely want to accomplish.
What about when we are ready? Whether it’s January 1st or June 1st, all it takes is the desire to be better and do better. I would say it takes commitment too, but I can’t count how many times I’ve been “committed” to working out and lost the momentum two weeks in. When desire comes into play, you don’t stick to your plan because you feel like you’re locked in by some imaginary contract you’ve made with yourself. Going after something that brings satisfaction and happiness is the best motivation to keep on going.
These resolutions, New Year’s or otherwise, will be easiest to stick to when they bring us sincere joy. It looks incredibly different for everyone and that is fine because of how drastically different most of us are from one another. For some it may be making a continuous effort to mend a broken relationship while others work on being less judgmental of people. For me, it is constantly changing in order to accommodate what is going on in my life at that point in time. Right now, I want to work on altering a few of my lifestyle habits. A few changes are being made here and there in order to get where I want to be. I am discovering and exploring new hobbies while trying to not forget about my old ones.
We need to find out what is meaningful and important to us as individuals in order to give them the desire we can sometimes forget we even have. Life is too short to do anything less.