New Year's Resolutions

As the year comes to a close, please allow yourself the space to sit back and view all that you have accomplished. Honor yourself and how far you have come this year. Allow for the time to reflect with gratitude and rest both physically with all of your body and breath as well as mentally and to truly take it all in. All your hard work has paid off, enjoy the fulfillment and watch it all unfold. 
 Last year, I sat down yet again and wrote out an extensive list of all the things I wanted to change, accomplish, or get done in the upcoming year. This action was no different than the annual list I typically write out for myself, which includes items that are almost impossible to accomplish in the reality of a busy year filed with university, graduation, and starting a full time job. Each and every year I sit and reflect on the bad and on my failures that I want to change and the actions I want to take to rectify these issues without much thought to the positives and the items that I did in fact accomplish during the past year. Sadly, I have been starting each new year off with a negative head-space and feeling down on myself yet somehow hopeful that all these things about me will suddenly change. Now, some people have very realistic and healthy goals written as their new year's resolutions, and I am not trying to diminish the good that these resolutions can being to someones life. I fully can see how reflecting on things you want to improve upon can be extremely beneficial and can kick-start a better life for the resolution-er. Although, for me, personally my new years resolutions are never easily attainable and are typicality re-written on my list of "to-do for __ year" over and over and over....and over.


Honestly, the truth is my resolutions never stay yearly resolutions and are typically revisited on a monthly basis and are constantly in the back of my mind as big ticket items that I want to work on throughout my life and not something I can just wake up and change in one day, although I would really love for that to be possible. So to me, writing down these long term and lifestyle changing goals over and over and not acknowledging any progress being made, even if small can be extremely discouraging and give myself the impression that I'm failing. For example, I had a big goal of becoming vegan for years and I expected to just be able to do it but the reality of the situation was that I was addicted to cheese, I didn't learn enough about the lifestyle, and I wasn't mentally ready to face the social aspect of having a totally different diet than the rest of society. Therefore, expecting myself to just wake up one day and be the perfect vegan was just setting me up for failure and disappointment in myself. I know I have these types of goals and I know the person I want to become, but things like that take time and take patience and only truly happen in small doses that may not even be noticeable. 


Due to all of the previous mentioned ideas, I do not want to write myself a laundry list of resolutions for 2019 and instead I want to have one single resolution: to make every single day the best day of my life.

Now I know you may be thinking that is the most unattainable goal to have, but is it really? Who says a day where you sleep isn't one of the best days of your life? Maybe putting on a face mask and running a hot bath makes for a perfect day to you, that could also be one of the best days of your life. Going into each day with a list of items that I have to do in order to feel accomplished is exhausting and distracts you from actually living in the moment and making your life an incredible journey every step of the way. 

The idea is to focus on the next step and not the entire path because with each step you are getting further down the path but still enjoying where you stand in that moment. I've spent so much time being miserable because I haven;t reached these far out goals, so the idea is that if I put my focus on the present moment, the exact second of life that I am living, and making now the best time of my life then there is no room for me to fail or to have any regrets. Mindfulness might be the best skill to practice daily that will have the most beneficial outcome and make my life more fulfilling and happy.