Ready for New Beginnings

I stopped making resolutions several years ago: they had almost become a joke.  The gym would be packed the first week of January, quite busy the second, and by the third week, things would be pretty much back to normal, exemplifying the seriousness with which most people take their plans for the new year.  By March, most people don't even remember what their resolutions even were.  I rarely see much resolve in resolutions.

However, I also feel like it is my responsibility to become a more complete person.  That isn't the work of a single day or night but of every day of the year.  I set intentions--sign posts, if you will, for qualities that I want to bring into my life.  Then, daily...or more frequently...I consciously ask myself what I should do that is aligned with all of  my intentions.  Every action is a choice point that is either aligned with my intentions or isn't. 

I find New Year's  to be a particularly good time to assess (see yesterday's post) how I am doing and to determine where I will bring more focus to my intentions in the year ahead.  I generally take a few hours to meditate on my life on either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.  It was the result of such a meditation last year that brought me the six words that I wrote about yesterday: love, laughter, health, happiness, wealth, and wisdom.

I had been pondering what I should write that would help my readers bring more seriousness to their resolutions or intentions, when I heard a radio interview during my walk yesterday.  The interview was with a man named Alex Sheen, who is founder of  "Because I said I would."  The focus of Sheen's work is that when we make promises, we should keep them.  If we promise to quit smoking or lose 20 pounds in the new year, we should treat that as a serious promise.  I like that concept. 

One of the reasons that I am so meditative about my intentions is because for me they are commitments or promises. In The Game Called Life I wrote a whole chapter about commitment, which is aligned with "Because I said I would."  Each day we make commitments, often without thinking about what we are committing to, whether we will keep them, or even what would be involved in keeping them.  Many of them slide off into oblivion, like our New Year's resolutions.

Whether you call it a commitment or a promise, our ability to stay in integrity with what we say we will do is about who we are.  If I make a promise or a commitment, I should consider it seriously beforehand.  What will it require of me to keep the commitment? What will I have to give up in order to keep the commitment?  Are there more important commitments that will be set aside in order to keep a less important one?  

Keeping a commitment, no matter how small or large, is about our personal integrity.  It says, "I am a person who can be counted on to do what I say I will do." 

In less than an hour a new year will be upon us, and the new year presents a time for new beginnings.  As I assess and reflect on the year ahead, I will look at commitments that I have broken in the year past...yes, even slipping back into sugar...again!  I will consider thoughtfully what promises I am making to myself, and then I will set my intentions--promises I will keep--for the year ahead.  This year instead of a commitment, I think I will consider the intentions I set as promised I am making to me--promises I want to be counted upon for keeping.

I am ready for new beginnings, but really it is just another day in which I have the opportunity to strengthen my integrity and become a more complete person.  Happy New Year!