Love Letter 26: New Year's Resolution Failed? A Word of Encouragement
Every day can be a new year's day!
I’m testing the audio file option on Substack. Hope you enjoy!
Dear Reader,
I hope this love letter finds you well 😊
We've reached mid-January and I've already met several people who've started to give up on their new year's resolutions. So I thought I'd give those of you who might be in that same boat some words of encouragement.
First of all: hats off to you for making a new year's resolution in the first place. Most people probably haven't!
Secondly: take heart - our schedules are so intensive nowadays, that it is easier than ever to get tired, overwhelmed, to just slip, or become demotivated.
And thirdly: what about if we got rid of the label "New Year's Resolution" and just tried again tomorrow? 😎
I've never been a fan of labels, categories, numbers, or names! Categories have been discovered so we can identify things more easily; but we don't have to categorise everything and stick to strict definitions of things and limit ourselves. That's what I believe, anyway.
Today might not be the 1st of January in terms of the calendar year, but you can still make it the first day of the year. It's still a new year's day - if you want it to be!
If you want to start something new, or if you want to make any kind of change, you can still declare today a new year's day, no matter what the date.
That's why I don't make new year's resolutions, anymore, because I know that within the first couple of weeks, they're going to go down the drain! It happens to more and more people. People get all excited - "YAYYY, we've got a new year coming in, I'm gonna do things differently this year!", we say. And we do mean it in that moment! A lot of us are really hyped up at the time, but the hype tends to die down as each day goes by and the routine sets back in.
People tend to fall back into the comfort zone and then it's really challenging to get out of it.
A little tip for when you wake up in the morning:
What if you put one hand on your head and one on your heart and say:
"Thank you! I love you! I am grateful that I have you. I am grateful that you're working well. I'm grateful that you're supporting my entire body-mind and spirit. Thank you that I'm alive for one more day! One million people didn't wake up this morning*... and I wasn't one of them! Thank you! Thank you for every breath that I take”.
So many people are on oxygen machines and can't breathe properly.
My Mum is in that situation, right now. 💚
Continuing on: ⇨ “Without breath, there is no life. So thank you for my breath. Thank you for my eyesight... thank you for my hearing. Thank you for my taste buds... thank you for my voice... Thank you that I can move my arms, my legs... Thank you for my digestive system and every organ in my body... Thank you for the people around me... Thank you for the people in my life. Thank you for my fans. Thank you for my Substack readers. Thank you for my fellow writers. Thank you for all the people who are helping me... who are bringing the food to my table. Thank you that I have access to clean drinking water…. Thank you for all the animals... the plants… the insects... thank you to the entire Universe".
Then, bless the Universe and everyone in it.
The next thing is to set an intention for your day:
e.g. "Why am I awake? What do I want to achieve today?"
Because if you start your day without setting an intention, chances are that you might move around your day aimlessly, not get much done, the day is going to go by, the night is going to set in and you're going to think, "What on earth have I done, today?? What have I achieved??". When you reflect on that at the end of the day, the chances that you will go to bed feeling very, very dissatisfied with yourself, are massive! (I’ve been there!). The lack of fulfilment is HUGE. Best to set an intention.
e.g.:
"I'm going to get up today because _______________“ (insert what you want to achieve). It doesn't have to be building a castle! It can be anything. It can be, "My intention is to get up and have a great day, a fun day, a happy day". That can be an intention. Then, put all your focus on achieving just that.
Maybe your intention is:
"I'm going to get up and write a song". Now that's a great one isn't it? (musicians!!) 👋
You'll have something to look forward to and you'll have a goal. And in having a goal and speaking about it, there's a good chance that you're going to achieve it. You can write it down, as well, and there'll be an even bigger chance of you achieving it then, because you'll keep seeing it every time you walk past that piece of paper, or every time you pick up your phone and open NOTES, or wherever you wrote it down.
You might even say:
"My intention today is to stay healthy the entire day". That's a great intention as well.
Or, you might say:
"Today I'm going to have a fantastic day at work. I'll be nice to everyone".
Or:
"Today I'm going to create 10 social media posts".
It depends what's important to you. These are your intentions.
So that's my tip for starting your day - no matter what the date is.
Happy New Year! Why are you getting up today?
Love & Decibels,
xx jo xx
* SADHGURU often says that one million people never wake up each day. Let’s meditate on that and be grateful that we even woke up today! 🙏
Thank you for these date-less and timeless words of encouragement, Jo. I have to say that I do enjoy the audio version. But I am trying to decide if that's just because Australian accents make me melt, or if I am genuinely able to take in the spoken word more deeply. Either way, keep doing that, please.
good post, Jo. I don't do NY resolutions because they are virtually guaranteed to ensure either failure or beating yourself up. Love the illustration!