Positivity: New Year's Actions

New Year, new opportunities for Positivity.

Many people take the change in calendar to try and make changes in their lives. As the year turns, it can feel like an opportunity is at hand to restart, refresh and renew our existence in some way or other.

This has, for many, taken the form of New Year’s Resolutions. They make a promise to make a change, usually either to eat better or lose weight or go to the gym or something along that line. They plan out a new idea, they resolve to make a change.

The trouble is, a resolution is all well and good…but if you take no action, you won’t get very far at all. Realistically most New Year’s Resolutions fall flat a short ways into the new calendar.

Several years ago I took a new approach to this idea. Instead of a New Year’s resolution, I took on a New Year’s action. I didn’t simply resolve to do something new…I did something new. Thus was born my other weekly blog, Pathwalking. I took the action of blogging weekly…and have continued to do so for a full three years now.

Actions are stronger than resolutions, because they involve doing instead of just planning. To resolve is to make a plan of some sort to try, but to act is to actually DO something with that plan. As Yoda said, “Do or Do Not…there is no try.”

Thus we reach an excellent opportunity for generating Positivity. We can take a New Year’s Action that will help create more positivity in our lives. We can do something that will help us to feel better, more frequently, and see the world for new possibilities all around us.

What kinds of actions can I take for creating Positivity? Different things will work for different people, but I have a few thoughts: Choose your media more sparingly, and don’t allow yourself to be inundated by all the bad news that gets broadcast. Write down five things you are grateful for daily. Before you post about how terrible something is to Facebook or Twitter, find something good to share instead. Do something that makes you smile at least once a day. Actively seek out something daily that will make you laugh.

If you choose to take the New Year as an opportunity to effect change, then I would suggest a positive, active change be sought out and made.

Why positivity? Because feeling positive helps us to feel good, and I don’t know anyone who does not want to feel good.

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action. Knowing that we can do more than just resolve to make a change, but instead take an action, we can create many positive things. When we act to build more positivity with the new year, we can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings. When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for. Gratitude leads to happiness. Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude. Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

This is the forty eighth entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.