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It’s normal for our focus to shift in the days leading to the end of a year and the symbolic start of new beginnings.
Most of us start thinking about the year that is finishing, what we achieved, what went wrong and what we hope for in the coming year.
It’s normal to set intentions for the coming year and put them down as Resolutions.
I used to make resolutions which I sometimes kept and sometimes broke. I felt happy when I succeeded and went as far as celebrating even the partial successes finding something positive in every experience and commending myself that at least I tried.
But there are only so many half-baked successes one can celebrate. One wants to be able to feel better about the past and the future and not fall off the bandwagon by January 17, famous as the Ditch New Year Resolutions Day.
Then, as I wrote in 3 simple steps to create your desired results in the New Year, I chose a different strategy of setting a Theme Word to guide me in the coming year.
Choosing a theme word isn’t enough though. One requires a growth mindset to make it work and wiping out conditioned beliefs that can impede our achieving our goals for the year.
That process is detailed in my post Success Secrets – Affirmations are a Vehicle for God’s Power.
But if you really want to create a New Year Resolution, I suggest that instead of resolutions to lose weight or give up a bad habit; try a new one – Release Negative Trends.
The Truth about Life and what You can expect
Each one of us, no matter how positive or spiritual we may be, encounter difficult or negative situations and circumstances at some point of our lives.
This point is brought out in Lord Buddha’s story about the Mustard Seed when he said that there is not one household that has not witnessed death.
You can read the story here or watch this quick 3 minute video.
The moral of the story is accepting that sorrow and difficulties come in everyone’s life.
Such situations are the acid test for our faith in ourselves and our true mettle is proven from how we handle the situation rather than our running away or trying to eliminate the problem.
When things are going great, it is easier to believe in the love of the Divine and feel that life is wonderful. It is when we are faced with trying times that we get an opportunity to test our spiritual power and our true inner strength is revealed. A lot depends upon our attitude.
Your Thoughts Create Your Reality
A positive thinker will see the hardships as times of change, opportunities to grow and accept that this is a transitional period from which one will emerge a new a better person and have learnt much to be used later in life or that the experience will help him to guide others on their journey when they are stuck.
A negative thinker will panic and sink into self-pity accompanied by self-blame, blaming others and in the process, attract further negativity into his life.
Success Strategy to Release Negative Trends
My strategy for success involves a combination of programming both your mind and sub-conscious mind with positive thought patterns.
Think positive thoughts. Use affirmations including meditation breathing exercises to embed positive thoughts and release any negative thoughts and trends that you might be harboring within you.
For the more analytically minded individual, the spiritual self-analysis can help to stimulate insight and intuition from one’s Higher Self to get to the root of the negative trend and find direction to bring about a positive new trend in their life.
Maintaining a Journal or a Planner helps keep us accountable to our resolve.
You can download your Growth Mindset ebook and planner bundle here.
From personal experience, I know that when faced with a difficult situation, we always have a choice.
It’s not just me, in my post Making choices when we have no choice; I’ve shared the story of the young delivery boy who was not willing to accept his hardship and kept his dreams of a better future alive.
We can choose to be resentful and find somebody or something to blame for the hardships and prolong our pain and discomfort. Or choose to face the challenge and grow as an individual fully aware that should we be brave enough to face adversity head on.
Trust the Universe will provide all that is needed, help to lead us out of our darkness and into the light and find ourselves improved for the experience.
I have always chosen the latter and find the travails encountered on the journey of Life easier when I have believed that this too is an experience that is important for my soul’s evolution and that God will never give me more sorrow to bear than I am capable of.
Immersed in deep prayer, meditation and positive thinking through affirmations, I have always overcome the crisis emerging stronger like the phoenix rising from the ashes and in a sense reborn.
What will you release in order to make the New Year your Best Year Yet?
Written By: Vatsala Shukla
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Very good point on releasing negative trends. My “resolution” this year is to continue to be a better, healthier version of myself.
Thank you Heather. I love your “resolution”. It’s one many of us ignore and then learn to regret later.
I set intentions and make promises to myself instead of resolutions. I am more likely to keep a promise once it’s made and with intentions I am always heading in the right direction even if I don’t make it all the way every day.
I’m better at setting intentions and keeping promises to myself too, Barb, if my motivation level is at least an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. For some reason, Resolutions feel like the rules we had in school and often difficult to keep because life changes in the course of the year and sometimes the resolutions are more of what we think we should do rather than doable.
Creating a list of things I would like to accomplish in the upcoming year would be the closest I’ve ever gotten to making New Year’s resolutions. I watched too many friends struggle and then fall short of their resolution (quit smoking, lose weight, etc). Their self-frustration and destructive behavior is hard to witness. This is a great article to remind us to be gentle on our selves, consider our options to celebrate a “beginning” anniversary and provide us valuable insights. Thanks!
My pleasure, Cindy. Thank you for sharing your insights with us. It’s better to be gentle with ourselves and achieve more than keep beating ourselves up for the things we couldn’t or didn’t do.
The conscious choices we choose to think, feel and express direct our life, and this takes inner courage and conviction. Thank you for this excellent thought provoking article Vatsala. Negativity is a choice. Choosing love, peace, harmony, abundance and to live our best life makes for a magical life. Happy 2019! 🙂
Happy 2019 to you too Debra. We need to choose wisely and I love the choice your offer. A magical life is guaranteed!
I agree, we always have a choice! I do not set resolutions, although I do write up specific goals with action steps. Finding negative thinking patterns and healing those false beliefs is a big part of achieving one’s goals. Thanks for your post Vatsala.
My pleasure, Lisa. I prefer goals with action steps too and a clear growth mindset to help me achieve them.
WOW! This was so very content-rich! I am happily sharing it with my pages. I especially enjoyed the video.
Happy New You, New Year, Vatsala.
Thank you Lore for sharing my post. I’m glad you enjoyed the video. Many of the Buddha Tales are part of the folklore Indian children are taught at school and this one is a favorite. 🙂