This morning I led the service at my church, the Unitarian Fellowship of West Chester and I thought I'd share what I talked about...
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I don't know how many of you make new years resolutions, but I used to be a master resolutioner. January 1 was always the chance at a new beginning. The opportunity to change every bad habit I had collected during my life. I have resolved to do most of the most popular resolutions. I have sat in exercise classes or in the middle of my closet knowing that this was the year where I'd become an exercise fiend or at least have a very organized closet. I always went into this with the best of intentions believing that just changing the year I wrote on my checks was my chance at being different.
And like most people who take on New Years resolutions, I failed. After a few weeks I stopped going to the gym 9 times a week (yes, one year I did that for about 3 weeks) or when faced with people coming over to my house and the need to get the house in order quickly I threw stuff randomly in a closet and there it was – I had failed at my resolutions. Why bother? Who cares? No one knows this was my plan so let's just give it up. There's always next Monday, February 1 or even better – next New Years Day.
A few years ago I thought of changing how I looked at the new year. Why did I keep making resolutions only for them to fail? Why did my resolutions fail to begin with? What did I really want to achieve? Was setting myself up for an unhealthy and unrealistic goal the way to achieve those things? Once I asked myself these questions it became very obvious to me that I was looking at this all wrong. It was time to change how I looked at the new year and how I looked at my own life.
When you think about it, New Years Day is a very arbitrary day to pick to start something new. We could go into the history of calendars but at its core, today is the start of the new year because as humans we need an organized system to run our lives. I remember when I was a kid – on the morning of my birthday my mom would wake me up and ask “so, do you feel older?” Sometimes I made up an answer because I knew what she wanted to hear but in my heart I didn't feel any different. So looking at New Years Day – I stopped myself one year and thought “why is THIS day any different than any other day? Why am I putting so much pressure on myself to change habits and patterns that are deeply worn because I bought a new calendar.
Many of us have habits that we'd like to change. I eat too much junk food, I swear more than I should, I'd like my bedroom closet to be organized all of the time. Why do I feel the pull to pick today as the day to jump head first into these new habits. What is it that I really want? When I stop to look at these resolutions at a high level I see a pattern. What I really want in my heart and soul is to be healthier, to be more peaceful, to live in a space that reflects these ideals.
I don't know about you but I find it easier to say to myself “I'm going to go to the gym X times a week” than “I'm going to be healthier”. How many of you have heard the term SMART goals? I suspect if you've ever written or received a review at work this term has been thrown around. SMART goals are generally defined as goals that are Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant and Timely. It's a lovely mnemonic to use. And it makes sense – I use it often with the people I work with. It's tough to tell an employee or client to “do better” because how on earth do you measure that? But when you say “I want you to turn in your monthly reports by the 10th of each month” or “I want you to spend 1 hour of uninterrupted time with your child per day” - well, those are measurable. You can look at your behaviour at the end of the day/week/month and say with certainty “yup, I did it” or “nope, I missed the bar in X or Y way”.
I think that is part of the draw of resolutions. You are going to go to the gym 5 times per week. That's specific. That's measurable. That's attainable (we'll discuss that one in a minute). That's relevant and that's timely. Great! It's a SMART goal. You're set – this is going to be your year. January 1st you might not hit the gym – you know, it's a holiday? Your gym might not be open. You may have family parties and celebrations to attend. But tomorrow – January 2nd! That's the day. So January 2nd happens – you hit the gym. (along with everyone else on the planet, it seems) and you feel great. See! This resolution! It's going to be the one that sticks. Then it's the 3rd – again, you make it. Yahooie! You are rocking this thing. All of those nay sayers who go on and on about resolutions not working – they don't know what they are talking about. They don't know you and what you want to do. Phooey on them – this is your year. And you go on just like that. You get through the first week and you've been to the gym 5 times. It was easy. Well, except that when you woke up you were tired so you decided to just go after work. Then when you got to the gym there were a ton of people there so it took you 10 minutes to find a place to park. Which is a shame because you really only have 45 minutes because you have to get home and get dinner started and work on that project for work that is due. For a second you ponder throwing in the towel and heading home. But fear not! This is your resolution and you are going to do it. Time moves forward and you are 2 or 3 weeks in. Week 3 – you only get to the gym 3 times. You had some social and professional commitments. It snowed one day and you couldn't get out to the gym. Your body was just tired and done – you hadn't had a consistent exercise program in a year and here you were shocking it into submission and one day your body just said ENOUGH and you woke up with a fever. And on and on. Before you know it February 15 rolls around and you haven't seen the front door of your gym in 3 weeks. Oh well! There it goes, you blew it. See you again next year when I try this again.
I can be slightly sarcastic and glib about this because I'm actually talking about myself. I have had all of those experiences and thoughts multiple times in my life. A few years ago I finally said to myself “stop! Why am I doing this to myself?” And most importantly “Why do these things always seem to fail?” I don't know about you but for me it always seemed that resolutions were an all or nothing proposition. In the past I have truly believed that the simple turning of the annual odometer meant that I was going to go from being a couch potato to a marathoner. Boom. New day, new year, new me. It took me a long time to realize that what I was actually doing was setting myself up for failure. I was creating those fabulous SMART goals but I was really throwing the baby out with the bathwater when it came to the attainable part. Why did I believe just because the calendar turned that who I was would change in an instant and it'd be easy to come up with a whole new me? I am sure that marketing had something to do with it. We are surrounded by a system that wants us to believe that anything is possible if we buy the right product, eat the new wonder food, join the new organization. Those things are necessarily bad things. I have bought products that have truly helped me be organized. I have changed my eating pattern to something different and have felt better. But when you put all of your eggs in that one basket, it often leads to a basket that falls apart.
So I started to think about what it is that I really wanted to achieve. What was it that I really wanted in my life. And would setting myself up for unrealistic resolutions be the best way to attain the goal. Through the very scientific method of looking at my own life it became obvious that resolutions were not the way to go.
Now what? What if I genuinely want to make some changes? That's not a bad thing. It can be argued that we always should and could be striving to improve ourselves. But what is the most effective way to do that? For me it became clear that an all or nothing resolution wasn't the ticket. So I started to look at this differently. What if I decided to walk away from the resolutions and the smart goals and instead focus on what I really wanted and not the specific actions of that goal. What I want is to be healthy? Does that mean beating myself into submission at the gym or does that mean making small steps towards that goal – having that in mind and working with it. It doesn't mean I forego physical exercise but “being healthy” is more than just a physical state – it's emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical. If I make small steps in each of these arenas could I achieve even more than making an arbitrary resolution? And why does that even have to begin on January 1st. Can't it begin any old day? Can't it even ebb and flow like so much in our lives?
So I began the practice of setting intentions. And I will be honest – I have had mixed success with this practice but I have certainly had more success than I have when I created strict resolutions. Let's talk about what we mean when we say setting intentions – a definition of an intention is “an act or instance of determining mentally upon some action or result.” Or let's try to break that down a bit – perhaps something like “to have in mind a purpose or plan, to direct the mind, to aim.” Intentions can take whatever form that we might like and we can achieve them in many different ways. What I like about the idea of intentions verses resolutions is that we can be successful in lots of small ways all of the time. My resolution may be “I will go to the gym 5 days a week” while my intention may be “to be healthier by being more active.” I can certainly achieve my intention by going to the gym 5 days a week. But I can also achieve it by meeting a friend for a walk or by going for a hike with my family. To me, it seems obvious that setting the intention of something bigger gives us the room to be more successful. Plus when we open ourselves up to a new way of achieving our intentions, we have the chance to realize many more benefits than just the stated goal. Intentions allow us to draw more on what we want for our lives as a whole and less on specific tasks that we may or may not be able to do.
Now I have talked about the arbitrariness of the new year but to be honest, it is a good breaking point. At the end of 2010 I was reviewing my year and something became very clear. While 2010 was a fabulous year, I got married, I traveled, I began building a home with my husband – it became obvious to me that I was missing connection with others and with myself. I had been so focused on work and wedding that I had lost a connection with a lot of my friends and I realized that I hadn't found too many new people in my life. In December of 2010 I came across a blogger, Ali Edwards, who was offering a class called “One Little Word”. While the class was centered around scrapbooking and I'm not a fabulous archivist in that way – I loved the idea. For the past few years, Ali had chosen a word for the coming year. And she used that word as something to focus her design work on and her life as well. She had used peace, vitality, nurture, light and her word for this year is up. I felt immediately drawn to this idea. I signed up for her class – not so much for the scrapbooking component but for the support of the One Little Word idea. The group which numbered in the thousands shared their words and there were some fabulous ones in there: abundance, accept, belonging, confidence, leap, play, relax, savor. People really seemed to come at this from all different angles. So with that I selected my word for 2011 – it was connection. I had no idea how that would manifest itself in my life when I chose it. I just knew that I needed to connect more with others and more with myself. I began to tell almost anyone who would listen about this idea. I even roped a good friend of mine into it – she chose focus – and we were off to the races.
If you had told me in January of last year the power that selecting this word would have on my life, I wouldn't have believed you. Connection for me began in a few ways. I knew I needed at least 3 things – more connection with the people who have been in my life for years, more connection with new people and more connection with myself. So with that I started getting my dearest girlfriends together more often. We're all so busy with families and careers that we had let the time we spent together in years past fall to the wayside – I made it a priority for us to see each other more. And we did. Next I knew I needed to meet some new people. So without really knowing anyone that was going, I signed up for Deborah's Women's Retreat in January. The simple act of doing that has introduced me to many of you and it has been a true joy to become more involved in this community. I also made the leap to say yes to advising a group of young women at Drexel and as a result I have met some of my favourite new people. The last connection was with myself. That one has been a bit more of a challenge. You see, I have trouble saying no when asked to do things. As a result, I have often found myself at the bottom of the list. So while this small word connection connected me with others, it left me lacking a connection with myself.
I have been thinking about what I want my word for 2012 to be. 2011 was a great year and I attribute that, in a large way, to my word so I know the power of this. I knew I needed to choose this carefully. So with that my word for 2012 is me. I am not sure where this will take me but I have some intentions. I'd like to take better physical care of myself. I'd like to be better about making the time that I need to be a happier and healthy me – more time for meditation, more time for writing, more time for just being. Where else it will take me? I have absolutely no idea but I certainly look forward to the adventure.
I'd like to encourage you to come up with your own word or intention. It can be anything you want. It can be active or passive, it can be personal or global. What feels right to you? What little thought sparks a small fire in your belly? What word when you say it to yourself feels like the answer to the question you didn't even know you needed to ask? Take that word as your own for this new year and see where it takes you.
