Evolve the Once a Year Tradition of Resolutions to Empower the Mind and Achieve Genuine Fulfillment  

History dictates the old tradition of establishing resolutions once a year to determine goals and desired changes leading into a new year. Some find these resolutions become irrelevant or seem unobtainable or burdensome within only a few weeks while others take a cheeky approach, mocking the importance of this exercise all together. However, it’s important to be deliberate about making choices leading into the new year, and more importantly, applying focus on the tools and techniques necessary to achieving these goals year-round. How does one set resolutions and new goals that easily break the routine and establish momentum that continues to inspire a person to establish a new life journey?

Exploring how to eliminate repeated distractions and negative influences that veer off a chosen path and learning to be specific about what one actually wants are the first steps to achieving meaningful milestones. For example, instead of determining that life may be more blissful if one lost weight as all the fitness propaganda suggests, it’s more critical to determine how weight loss translates into a new vision of self. The point, of course, is the impact that a certain resolution will have on one’s health, love life, relationships, confidence, energy level, cholesterol and more. The overall weight is irrelevant if the result doesn’t correlate to an improved outlook on one’s body or wellbeing as the true end result.

This approach to goal setting may initially feel unconventional as it emphasizes a state-of-mind rather than a specific action. However, think of the mind and the constant stream of triggers and influences that inundate a person in a given day or even minute. It’s helpful to journal these distractions and identify which ones are consistently swaying emotions in an opposing direction or breaking one’s concentration.

What information are people consuming unconsciously that is shaping their minds and taking over their thoughts? When the negative influences are recognizable, consciously block and remove them or disregard the emotions that they often trigger.

Without these obstacles in the mind, it’s easier to be fully present and then utilize all senses with a pure (thought-less) state in which one can design a future scene in life when the goal is achieved. Nearly like magic, the path to get there will start to take shape.

Using this example of losing weight, the state-of-mind a person attributes to a blissful, healthier or skinnier body is the real goal. Once the weight is lost, no work has been done to reflect the desired mindset, so at the end of the day the outcome is generally one of disappointment and an unfulfilling void, even if the goal is even met.

The key is refocusing the outcome of the goal in terms of the new vision and how one wishes to feel versus how one feels today. How does that feeling translate into achieving a specific goal or resolution? Direct the general stream of conscious to one of a positive nature – reflecting personal power, good health, strength, joy, achievement, and more, which will fuel even more new goals based on an increase in energy, momentum, and certainty. It may play something like this:

As I step into the board room, I’m blinded a bit by the sun peering in the floor-to-ceiling windows sending a feeling of warmth through my body which sends a tingle of comfort down my spine. It’s ever so inviting. I smell the aroma of dark roasted coffee and a hint of fresh fruit. My new red power suit has me feeling extra strong and determined today. I hear the subtle sounds of traffic outside and the chatter of my colleagues coming from the hall. I look down and see my name in bold on the agenda. I can literally taste the champagne on my lips that we’ll be toasting shortly. Today we are celebrating me and my promotion.

Seeing outside the box and processing in terms of overall life fulfillment excites the mind, capturing its full attention and potential, and then ultimately creating real momentum and positive change. Mark each day as the beginning of real change and accomplishment by fully opening the mind and tapping into that potential now that there is space to challenge intentions and personal power with meaningful goals that may have seemed out of reach before.