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The year 2018 will soon be over, and it will be time once again to make New Year’s resolutions. This annual tradition brings the possibility of change, like adopting a new diet or a new exercise regimen, but it can also induce feelings of guilt and inadequacy. The American Psychological Association recommends a few behaviors to make the new year less of a guilt trip and more of a boost. In a nutshell, the APA recommends a gradual approach, changing one behavior at a time and taking small steps towards positive change.
In my book, The Boundless Life Challenge, I give readers one action step each day, so that the process of transformation does not become overwhelming. I think it helps to have a guide for each day of the week, so that we do not become too bogged down in over-thinking and self-defeating behaviors. By taking small action steps and maintaining positivity, we reclaim our own power to live in a healthy and abundant way.
I also included an appendix on completing the challenge in groups, in keeping with the APA advice, which reads, in part:
Share your experiences with family and friends. Consider joining a support group to reach your goals, such as a workout class at your gym or a group of co-workers quitting smoking. Having someone to share your struggles and successes with makes your journey to a healthier lifestyle that much easier and less intimidating.
I hope that my readers will get together and complete the challenge in groups, whether in person or online. We are all familiar with social media being used in negative and addictive ways, but it can also bring positive reinforcement.
It doesn’t help to engage in self-critical, perfectionistic self-talk, but we also want to avoid the opposite trap of pessimism and complacency. Otherwise, learned helplessness prevents making any real headway. Dwelling on past failures can create the misleading impression that real change isn’t really possible, or that we cannot really do anything about our life circumstances. Positive change requires claiming our own power without falling into overly aggressive or self-critical behavior.
We have to find that sweet spot of doing neither too much nor too little. As I wrote in the book,
Each day, indeed every moment of the day, you have a choice. You can surrender to the censorship regime of ego and pessimism, putting your best plans on hold until more favorable conditions arise (they never do). Or you can ignore the ego’s censorship and embrace personal power, by taking some small constructive action in the world...The deliberate choice to be optimistic, to believe in your power, is simultaneously an expansion of the possibilities open to yourselves and to the world at large.
Our lives are intertwined in such a way that the choices each one of us makes affect us all.
On one level, January the first is just another day, and everything will continue the same as before. Looking at things from a broader perspective, each and every day offers the chance to begin again, to live in the way that we truly want to live. When we claim our own freedom, we make it possible for others to do so as well. That is true in our personal lives, and it is also true in a social and political sense. We all have a part to play in making the world a better place, in making our society better for ourselves and future generations. Thinking these big, bold thought and combining them with good habits really does lead to a Happy New Year!
