"This year I’m going to lose 15 pounds."
"This year I’m going to go to more networking events."
"This year I’m going to make more time for self-care."
"This year I’m going to finish my manuscript."
How many New Year’s resolutions have you made and broken – or worse yet – made and then promptly forgotten?
It can be very difficult to stick to these annual promises, but there is a fun, intuitive way to help you create meaningful resolutions and stick to them. The key is to develop a personal theme for the year and then allow your actions (resolutions) to naturally flow from that theme or way of living and experiencing the world.
Your Yearly Theme will help guide your everyday decisions and actions, and will result in your feeling more fulfilled. This theme will provide one simple instruction that will help you to stay aligned with your deepest desires.
Once you uncover your theme, you commit to approaching each day and each thing you do with that theme in mind. Examples of personal themes include love, acceptance, peace, self-respect, fun, connection, abundance, laughter, health, creativity, and many more.
One theme you might choose is "abundance." Perhaps you recognize a deep need in your life that stems from always feeling a lack of something: a lack of money; lack of clients; lack of sleep; a lack of personal downtime; and a lack of feeling healthful.
While you could make each of those things a separate resolution, it might be more effective to do some deep work around feeling that you’re leading an abundant life – feeling that you have more than enough of what you need and want instead of feeling like you are lacking in so many ways. If you could approach your life with the theme – or attitude – of abundance, you’d be able to create more money, more connection, more business, more time and more health.
Approach each day and each task with an attitude of abundance. Think abundant thoughts; create activities for yourself that helped you feel abundant, and pay particular attention during the moments when you feel you don’t have enough of something. Through that simple adjustment, you’ll create more abundance in your life, achieve your resolutions, and learn some life-changing lessons along the way.
Creating a theme for your year will help you recognize what you want your year to be and feel like, and then your goals and resolutions will come naturally from that place. At the end of the year, not only will you have been able to accomplish your goals; you will also have incorporated and mastered the feeling of your theme in your life.
How to create your personal theme for the New Year:
1) What’s missing? Make a list of what wasn’t or didn’t happen last year: Anything from "romantic partnership" to "enough sleep" to "financial freedom" to "exciting hobbies."
2) What do you want? Make a list of all of the things you’d like to accomplish this year: These can be big and small things, resolutions as well as baby action steps.
3) How would it feel? Examine that list of what you want, and then ask yourself what you need to activate within yourself in order to accomplish those things. Perhaps you need patience, or courage, or a sense of humor, or positive thinking. Next, ask yourself how you want to feel as you accomplish these goals. Do you want to feel calm? Balanced? In love? Committed?
4) Determine your theme: Narrow down your list from #3 to the one feeling, idea or state of being that resonates with you the most for the upcoming year. This is your theme.
5) Try out your theme: Whatever theme you come up with, close your eyes and imagine yourself moving through this next year with that quality completely energized and activated. Can you see yourself? How does it feel? If it feels good, you have your theme for the New Year!
I would LOVE to hear from you – what is your personal theme for this year and why did you pick it? Let me know!
