Can you believe we’re almost a month into 2018? I trust you all had a very happy start to the new year and 2018 is already bringing you all the good stuff and MORE! Today I am reflecting on resolutions..
Do you find sticking to your goals challenging? As we get back into the swing of life after the holidays, sometimes it can be tricky to keep our resolutions. So here are 2 simple things I do to bring my "resolutions" to life, and ensure my dreams don't get forgotten.
Happy New Year!
This year I stayed home on New Years’ Eve. I have never been one to shy from a good celebration, and would say I’m quite a social person, but this year, I decided that instead of going out just because it was NYE – I would decline invitations and purposely stay in. The truth is, 2017 was a really big year, and this time I wanted to honour how I was feeling, reflect on everything that happened and to bring in the new year in a different way.
After taking my cats around for a visit to my neighbour (we are trying to make them friends but my neighbour’s cat has other ideas!) I did a tarot reading for myself. I only do this for a bit of fun, so I will admit it took a couple of hours (I still have to look up the card meanings one by one!). And then, I set about clearing out my Gratitude Jar to get it all fresh and ready for my 2018 entries, turned on some tunes, and began writing my "resolutions".
Making resolutions stick - there must be a way?!
If you are like me, you will love making lists of everything you want to do - but how are those New Years’ resolutions working out for you? Resolutions are not often flagged for success. You know how the story goes…we try diligently with determination for a few days, maybe a week or two – but...it's not long before they fall to the side. And we’re often left with feelings of letting ourselves down, or being sad and angry for not following through AGAIN.
I realised that I had some of the same resolutions for 10 or even 20 years, which if you think about it….is pretty ridiculous. They were important things to me – things that I really wanted to achieve – but for some reason, year after year, I never seemed to actually do them.
It might have been that I wasn’t prioritising them, or perhaps I just got busy and forgot about them. It’s possible that I didn’t want them enough or I believed they were just never meant to happen… but for whatever reason, resolutions never quite worked out for me like I thought they would.
Time to put a new twist on those resolutions.
A couple of years ago I realised I needed to do something about this. Break the pattern. Instead of writing resolutions – I would replace them with intentions and affirmations. See, most of my resolutions were not about attaining some material item. They were about me living my best life. So, I decided to stop wishing and start believing, and instead of writing “I want to”, I wrote “I am".
Woah. Did that change things!
I made my list (of course, being a Gemini, I ended up with more than 10 points instead of the 5 I’d originally planned). I wrote my dreams out, as though they had already come to life. I wrote “I am” statements, affirmed how I felt, what I was doing and what my life was like as though I was living out my intentions in that moment, right then and there. I read that sheet of paper out loud, with meaning - every day, morning and night.
In turn, things began to change, and I manifested almost all those points into my life that year. It really was one of the best years of my life! I was able to let go of any of the ones that didn’t come to me, realising that they weren’t so important after all.
Can you really bottle up your gratitude?
YES! You can. This was another thing I began, the same year as I replaced my resolutions with affirmations. I made a gratitude jar. I highly recommend you get one and every day, put in it one thing (or more!) that you are grateful for.
It's also fun to reflect on the year past as you read back through the notes. It's the best way to remind us of all the big and little things that happen in our daily lives, that make it so beautiful!
HAVE A MAGICAL 2018! Claire x
PS. 2018 is a number 11 year - in numerology it is said to be a very powerful number, where whatever you put out there will come back to you amplified. So, keep on putting those intentions out there. Figure out what it is you really want, write down your affirmations, and start manifesting your life into the one you've always wanted. The life of your dreams, that you truly deserve.