Why I Don't Set Resolutions

The following is a real conversation that happened just after midnight on New Years Eve between me and Peter (my step father in love, here visiting from Ireland) as I walking up the stairs after our last card game and new years' kisses goodnight to everyone. 

Peter: "Welp, I suppose tomorrow we had better write some resolutions for the year to come eh?" (*Read this is a really gorgeous, thick, Belfast accent please)

Me: "Mmmm, I don't write resolutions but I do have a different process I do." ... While internally wondering how deeply I should elaborate here or if I should say that I've already done it or even perhaps offer to walk him through it. This beautiful man usually just listens curiously and quietly nods when I explain all my strange rituals and foreign ingredients (like greens powder and goji berries).

Peter: "Oh you HAVE to love! Tomorrow, we'll get a bit of paper and write down all our resolutions."

Me: "Sounds like an important practice to you; I love that. Does it help you achieve what you want each year?"

Peter: "Nope, No. Never does love, but it's just something you do isn't it?" 

I smile, my feeling not to elaborate on my own practices now confirmed and love for Peter also amplified.

"You got it Peter, I'll get you some paper in the morning." And off to bed I went. 

Before I drifted off to sleep this little exchange struck me as a conversation that I have with clients in different words but always with the same theme. So many of us, are doing things in the conventional ways we were taught, because we think that we "should" even though we know it doesn't work for us.

The bottom line is always the same:

"I want something different than what I'm getting in my life right now, but I don't know how to get it. Most days I don't even know what it is that I want, I just know that it's not showing up in my life right now. I've been trying in all the ways I know how, but something is still blocked."

We've been taught that if we set goals, we'll get what we want.

If we've had serious coaching we'll even set goals that are S.M.A.R.T. goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound).

I've worked with plenty of women who live, die and swear by their goals. I've worked with women who set goals and immediately forget about them or change them. Women who achieve them, and women who don't; women who use them and women who run from them... but one thing is almost always present just one layer down... 

Dissatisfaction. 

The issue is not in setting goals nor is it in having goals, as that can truly be beneficial for so many.

The issue is this: that dissatisfaction is present whether the goal is achieved or not. Whether the resolve is attained or not there is a lasting feeling of lack sitting beneath it driving the behaviour.

When we "resolve" and write out our goals, usually it's from a place of "not enough" and trying to run from our pain. The other option is to align with our liberation and to be called forward by our joy.

The practice is to align with the frequency of a feeling, and then to swim in its current until we master it and become it. 

It's the difference between going for a surf and being a surfer.

The difference between making dinner and being a good cook.

The difference between drinking a smoothie and being healthy.

The difference between doing a workout and being vibrant. 

It's not one thing that you achieve and tick off the list; it's a string of pearls, a never ending sequence of many events that all create a desired feeling in you and eventually add up to an entirely new identity. 

It's the difference between doing the thing or becoming it.

When you become a surfer, not only will you regularly go for a surf, you'll keep your body mobile and strong, you'll learn how to read the weather and the swell, you'll have several favourite wetsuits and waxes, you'll enjoy the time you spend in the waves exploring new surf breaks and oceanside travel.

When you become a good cook, not only will you make dinner but you'll read recipe blogs, keep exotic spices in your cupboard, experiment with new ingredients, invest in quality cooking tools, enjoy time spent in service in your kitchen.

See where this is going? 

Somewhere along the journey you will complete all of the activities that could have been goals, but you won't stop there because a single goal was never the destination. We're moving forward because we feel good. Each little action creates the internal state of being that we're targeting. 

The destination is who you become as a result of consistently feeling the way you want to feel. 

So, if you haven't done your New Year's resolutions yet, perhaps this year you don't do them at all. 

Perhaps this year you don't list all the ways you need to change in order to feel happy and whole. 

This year, I invite you join me in my own inner process:

1. Get clear on what it is that you are most willing to create in your life

Prompt: Look at all the goals you've written in the past; when you complete them, obtain them, have them etc... how will you feel?

2. Name it as a feeling, a state of being (the fewer the better) 

Example: One of mine this year is: Lush. So on my bedside table there's a note that I see every morning that says "I am lush"

3. What do you need to do in order to create that feeling today, tomorrow, before bed, when you're with the kids, in your body, in your refrigerator, in your bank account, in your home, in your wardrobe, in your relationships, in your sacred rituals, in your conversations with source and the sacred? Your list will include some "one off" things and some recurring things

Example: Here are a few things on my list of things I'm willing to do, buy and create in order to feel lush:

• Cut my 1 kilometer swim time down to 20 minutes by adding an extra swim sesh on Sunday mornings when Keith can play with Cian
• Wear my best denim jeans instead of my yoga pants when I go out for  errands
• Do our monthly meat shop only at the local, organic, biodynamic butcher

4. Get clear on when and how you will do these things

Make space for it, pop it in your calendar, make it a habit

5. Do it all, one step at a time

Small, consistent steps are always better than huge short lived actions

6. Celebrate your small wins and your big wins along the way

Don't skip this, your brain needs the dopamine rush of noticing that you're actually doing it, this is how you get addicted to telling the truth, to showing up on time, to being who said you were going to be

7. Watch who you're becoming

I've attached a meditation for you at the top of this article.

It's a portal to make contact with someone deep inside you who will guide you: Your Inner Loving Mentor. It's a 20 minute practice that I return to often for council, guidance and inspiration from my own inner source. I always include this practice in my courses and the results I've seen from it over the past 8 years have been exquisite. 

I hope you find it to be useful as well. 

If you're called to this work but would like deeper guidance or answers to questions, hit reply to this email, I'm always here.  

I would like to acknowledge a few of my teachers and the influences they have had on the development of this facet in my work over the years: Carolyn Myss, Danielle Laport, Charles Duhigg, BJ Fogg, James Clear and Simon Sinek (to name a few). Thank you for your research and your gifts.