On the Way to Free
What are your New Year’s resolutions this year?
If you’re like many people, you’ve been giving some thought to the improvements to your relationships, body, health, finances, career and life you’d like to make in the coming year.
Though everyone’s resolutions are unique and personal, I believe that they often come to down to one word…
Freedom.
After all, a desire to earn more money, buy a new car, get a promotion and travel to exotic places all involve a sense of financial freedom.
Health, fitness and weight loss are another popular set of topics around which people make New Year’s resolutions. Again, the bottom line here is a feeling of freedom to have the energy and ability to move how we want to move as well as the freedom to more easily love our body.
An expanded freedom to be, do or have whatever it is each of us desires can be found at the root of just about every single resolution that is made.
The challenge with resolutions, goals and aspirations is that, as human beings, we have a tendency to fall short.
We might stick with our new exercise and eating plan for a few months, but after that we return to what’s comfortable– even if we believe that it’s also not helping us attain that fitness and weight loss goal.
It can seem like a foregone conclusion that we will fail to reach the ultimate goal. The excitement and sense of anything is possible that accompanied the initial resolution-making can quickly fade. Disappointment and even a little (or a lot) of self-hatred can take hold.
Of course, there are exceptions to this trend. There ARE people who follow through with their goals; they attain what they sought to attain.
What do THEY know and what do they do that many of the rest of us don’t seem get?
People who reach their goals don’t allow the overwhelm to take over.
I believe that many of us become overwhelmed with our resolutions. When I think about some of the things that I desire to be, do and have, I know that I can quickly feel like they are TOO BIG!
The word “freedom” itself seems HUGE when I think about it.
Especially when the change or experience is relatively unknown to you, it can seem like too much to conceptualize. How could that amount of money ever end up in my paycheck? How could I ever drive that kind of car or travel to that far-away place?
If you feel yourself firmly planted where you are and you look at what and where you want to be, it can seem like a vast and cavernous space in between.
In response to having little to no clue about how we will get from here to way over there, most of us panic a bit. The overwhelm takes over and we often give up before we’ve truly begun.
The people who stick with their resolutions and follow them through to attainment also undoubtedly feel overwhelmed from time to time. Making a big (or even a little) change can seem daunting.
What people like this do differently, however, is they don’t let the overwhelm take over. They recognize that they feel overwhelmed, they breathe and they re-connect with their eagerness to get to where they want to go and be what they want to be.
People who stick with their resolutions keep reaching for what’s on the way.
One strategy for dealing with overwhelm is not to look so far into the future. Instead of feeling as if you have to have your path from here to there all planned out, take it in smaller chunks.
When you think about your resolution, what occurs to you as a next step toward that goal?
If what you want is to stop yelling at your kids, for example, come up with some resolutions that point you in that direction. You might be stressed out a lot of the time and find yourself losing it quickly and easily with your kids. Yelling at them has become a “normal” occurrence at your house and you’d like to find different ways to communicate.
Ask yourself what might move you closer to that resolution? Brainstorm a list and pay particular attention to the possible changes that feel more doable as they come to you. Start with these items that don’t overwhelm you (or don’t overwhelm you as much).
For instance, these might include things like: taking the time to relax at least twice a week, making a list of parenting and communication resources from the library or walking away when a discussion becomes heated between you and your kids.
Focus your attention on these along the way goals that are vitally important too. Be sure to congratulate yourself when you follow through. Each “little” goal achieved is one step closer to your ultimate goal.
If freedom is what you want, put yourself on the path to freedom.
