It’s New Year’s Day. We love New Year’s Day. It’s the harbinger in that it is always a hope-filled day decked out in possibility and potential. We start it with determination to chisel out ourselves a better life–or a life that we perceive as better.
This is our chance for a new beginning, a fresh start, a clean slate. And we embrace it with the lightest of hearts. Oh, maybe with a little fear and doubt and worry that we’ve set a plan for ourselves we won’t be able to accomplish. Or with a tiny bit of unease that it’ll be too hard, too taxing, too whatever and we’ll fail. Though typically those fears wait a few days to manifest. Until all the celebrating and good cheer cease and we return to the mundane and normal. That is a tricky time.
But it doesn’t have to be tricky. We don’t have to lose heart or to give up on us or toss up our hands with disappointed cries of, “I can’t do this. It’s too … (whatever)!”
No, we don’t have to go down that road. We can choose another path. And, yes, it is just that simple. (See? I heard you talking back to me through the screen saying, “It’s not that simple.” It is that simple.
I’ll have a Social-In Global Network post featured this Thursday on the topic. I hope you’ll find answers in it that are helpful to you. Read it here.
Between now and then, know that we all are put through the paces. We start out determined and focused and full of certainty that we can do what we intend to do.
Then doubt creeps in and with it comes fear that we’ve bitten off more than we can chew, and more than we can accomplish. We see ourselves as lacking–the skills, ability, even the will. Our doubt is in ourselves because it is from within us that we make these things happen for us. (Remember, we can’t depend on others. They are not what we control. We control us. No more, and no less.)
Fear and doubt smack us down–but they can only do that, if we let them. We get to choose what we condone, and what we condone, we own. It’s no one else’s fault and we have no one else to blame. That, like the rewards of success, are ours to bear.
So how do we combat doubt? Help ourselves succeed at our goals?
By recognizing that these goals are difficult and they likely require sacrifice. By accepting these things, and then pressing on to tackle our goals anyway. How do we do that?
By recognizing our inner-strength, the wisdom in our minds, and the courage in our hearts. If we stumble and fall, we get up. So long as we get up, we’re still pressing forward toward our victory.
If we focus on those things, we’ve already succeeded. We’ve won!
Have a blessed New Year.
