Happy New Year – Evolution Not Resolution

Resolution: The firm decision to do or not do something.

Evolution: Any process of formation or growth; development.

The last thing anyone needs in a New Year is yet another To-Do List, i.e. a list of New Year’s Resolutions or that remodified list piled so neatly on top of the previous New Year Resolutions. Resolutions are well-intended promises to change oneself in exchange for a preferred result. Resolutions are a subtle to not-so-subtle admission to oneself that you are not quite good enough or that what you are doing is not adequate, concluding that by forcing yourself to abide by new habits the love, happiness, relationships, and finances you seek will follow.

There is a reason why gyms are all but empty by February, diets are broken, and why for most, their income and finances rarely expand each year, allowing for disappointment and despair to follow. New Year’s Resolutions are alluring but commonplace seducers for the unsuspecting. They deceive you into believing that success in all areas of life is yours for the taking if you just complete a simple list of mandates throughout the weeks, months, and years. Upon completing these subtle decrees, resolutions lead you to believe you will magically un-become yourself, in favor of becoming a completely new person. Resolutions don’t work, for you cannot simply decide to no longer be yourself. You may temporarily camouflage yourself. The real you always does eventually surface.

While resolutions don’t work, evolutions do. Evolution is about growth, not resolve. It does not take resolve to be you. Evolution is about evolving your skills, strengths, mindset, energy, and essence into an expanded version of who you already are. Where resolutions require resolve, evolution requires mindfulness and good intent. Resolutions involve change. Evolution requires exposing more of who you are. ?Resolutions are temporary solutions to long-term problems. Evolution is realizing that there are no problems, only possibilities that are revealed as one becomes more of who they already are.

Here are three effective steps to evolving into more of who you are:

Focus On and Force Multiply Your Existing Good: Many New Year’s Resolutions revolve around creating new habits. Forcing yourself to stick to a new habit is a sign that you are doing something that is not acutely you. A habit won’t stick if it requires you to be someone different than who you are. This is why the typical resolution of going to the gym regularly doesn’t stick for most. If, however, one aligns their desired result with their specific built-in strengths, success is inevitable. Aligning one’s strengths with the desired result force multiplies the result, success.

Don’t Be Afraid, Test Assumptions: Evolution requires one to reflect upon their beliefs about themselves. Much of what people believe about themselves is a result of programming they received from their support structures as children, including family, schooling, societal, and those remaining influences. Many of one's embedded beliefs about themselves are nothing more than just that, beliefs (a delusional false image of themselves, that only they believe). Evolution requires one to continually test assumptions about one’s abilities and strengths to find untapped capacity and skill. This is why resolutions may, on occasion, work. When one forces themselves to develop a new habit, they may surprisingly learn that they have a skill or capacity they were unaware of (alas we are not looking for surprises, we are looking for solutions). The execution of an action, to force-create a habit, is not the most effective method for discovering one’s untapped potential. Testing and navigating the assumptions one has about themselves consistently and continually is a good method for discovering untapped capacity, and ultimately achieving one's total objective, through a new expanded version of themselves.

Live In a State of Gratitude, It’s More Than You Can Image: New Year’s Resolutions do little to show reverence for all that you have already become. If anything, resolutions may desecrate the person they intend to improve. Evolution, however, requires a consistently grateful state of mind. Through this constant undercurrent of genuine and sustained gratitude, one is easily propagated for victory. Evolution is comprised of appreciation through good times and through bad, realizing that both are beacons to the expanded version of oneself.

The End.

No. Really, it's the beginning.

Happy New Year