What did you resolve??

Drawing near Christmas and the New Year, I’ve begun to do a little bit of reflection. OK, a little is a serious understatement. I’ve been basically overanalyzing everything I’ve experienced in the past year, and trying to understand what the moral of the story is. For most, the ball-dropping, drunk-kissing, champagne-toasting New Year is the beginning of a new diet or a new hair color or a maybe a new single-gal start. This is all fine and dandy and even encouraged, but let us not forget those elusive resolutions from last year…

After all, resolutions imply that something is resolved. Something you wanted to change, you make a promise to resolve it. You want to lose weight? Resolve the issue you have with the ten pounds you want to shed. I actually am having a difficult time trying to remember what it is that I vowed to do for the year (defeating the resolution process) however in past years I can say I have had serious success in whatever I’ve promised to resolve. For instance, two years ago, I vowed to be more selfish. Being someone who has issues with standing up for myself or too often placating others before self, I felt that being more selfish would allow me not only to improve my personal sense of worth, but also help me to focus on getting done the things I wanted to do for myself.

Ok, so January 1^st – promises made. We walk (or stumble, depending on how you party on New Year’s Eve) into this new beginning. These resolutions are the nice ones, the ones you decide to do for yourself, the ones that you feel like you want to achieve because there is something about yourself or your behavior that you feel just isn’t up to par. But what about those times when it isn’t the New Year? When something accidentally happens to you that you must take a serious look at yourself right now and evaluate what you must do…I had a moment like this yesterday. I had a moment where I was embarrassed about something I’ve been analyzing about myself. I’ve been mentally formulating some kind of plan for myself to improve this aspect of me, but haven’t really solidified or followed through on any kind of plan. Someone once told me this brilliant jem of truth: “the difference between a dream and a goal is that if it is a goal, you have a plan with real attainable steps.” And so my little mental game of planning with no follow through means I had only been dreaming of what I wanted. And sometimes, it takes a rude awakening to push you into goal-mode.

And so, I was accidentally humiliated, unbeknownst to the other person who accidentally caused this scenario. I spent the night replayed the incident and cringing to myself, wishing it had never happened and letting my insecurities manifest themselves into self-pity and mascara-streaked tears. I mean, who really needs an outside reminder of what they already know and loathe?

Actually – we all do.

I was finally able to talk about my scenario with my other half and best friend and although she gave me the words of comfort we all seek when venting to someone, she also said something real and honest that only someone who truly loves you will tell you: take the insult and injury and run with it. Suck it up and use this humiliation for motivation. I’m not going to deny what happened and comfort myself with hollow ego-boosting adjectives. I’m going to start right now – right this minute, and start to do what needs to be done. It may have been somewhat of a resolution to me that I was planning on committing to when the New Year strikes, but now it has become a goal that starts right this very instant.

The best part of a resolution is the excitement of the end result. The best part of the end result is what you learned on your way there. I think a lot of failure (as far as resolutions go) has to do with the fact that people tend to replace the excitement with fear. Of course frustrations and roadblocks can send us into a tailspin to which we lose our visions, however, I feel like if you can really really get yourself excited about your potential to create whatever you want for yourself, you gain a sense of empowerment that will block out most of those frustrations. Believing that you can ACTUALLY do what you are trying to do is 90% of the battle. If you can see yourself in the place, use your motivation (even if it comes of a place of humiliation) and make one small conscious effort towards your goal after another, you will surely reap the benefits in no time. We all know when we’re really being diligent and when we’re not. I mean, c’mon – sleeping in those extra twenty minutes feels good at the moment but you know how awfully guilty you feel when it means you just missed your morning run…

And so here I am, t-minus three days until Christmas and tapping away at my keyboard being introspective and weird at work (see, I know I’m not being diligent at work here and I’m not afraid to admit it). I have created for myself a plan of diligence and discipline to achieve what I want that is simple: color inside the lines. I know, for myself, that if it isn’t easy, I won’t do it. I’m talking like, two or three steps max here. So for me, coloring inside the lines means two things: choosing and acting. Make choices that are in line with what I’m working toward and act in alignment with what I’m working toward. That’s it.

I’m looking forward to my success and I know I’ll achieve it because I can see it. A rude awakening was all it took (well, not “all it took” because that downplays how much of a punch in the face it was) for me to kick it into gear, and that’s just what I have to follow through on. As far as those nice little “next-year” resolutions, I’m going to have to dig a little deeper to uncover one of those really good ones that I can really stick to (“be a bitch” or “be more selfish”). I’m looking forward to another year of awesome personal growth and big leaps though – and that in itself is something to get excited about!!!