Actions for the New Year

Last year, I ended 2011 by stating my plan to make actions rather than resolutions for 2012.

I feel that taking action, rather than making a resolution, is more powerful, and far more easy to work with and on.  I am not just putting out some idea for what to do that I might try, I am going to take action.

My New Year’s Actions for last year:

• I will act to more frequently show gratitude for the things I have, the people in my life, my health, my job, and all the other things for which I am grateful.
• I will act to treat the people around me as I wish to be treated.
• I will act to focus on positives, and ignore negatives.  I will act to spin out a positive from a negative.
• I will act to work on the now, and not dwell in the past nor pine for the future.

I believe that I have done a pretty decent job with these.  And rather than create new actions for 2013, I am going to restate these, and add one or two.  Having learned quite a lot from actions of the past year, I also know these can and should be made more concise.

As a part of taking actions last year rather than resolutions, I began to blog weekly.  I created my Pathwalking series, to explore the idea of finding and walking my own path in life.  In order to experience the actions I set forth at the end of 2011, I use the blog to share what I am learning as I undertake this journey.

I recognize that these actions are something that can be applied daily.  That was the intent.  They are not grandiose, they should not require any truly life altering acts.  They create simple things easily done that I think will better my life.

It is too easy to resolve to do something big and life changing.  And the complexity of big and life changing ideas can quickly become too difficult and thus overwhelming, and as such get abandoned.

The actions I have taken, and will take further, are simple.  But in choosing these simple actions, I am setting myself up for success.  And success, I have been learning, will build up bigger and bigger, no matter where you start.  So why not start small, and allow for some exciting escalations of success?

I am far too good at self-sabotage.  So doesn’t it make more sense to set myself up for success, instead of failure?  The only conclusion I can reach here is, yes, why not allow myself something I can easily succeed with?

So before you make that convoluted, hard-to-follow resolution, why not choose a simple action to better your life for the coming year?

My New Year’s Actions for 2013:

• I will express gratitude frequently and unreservedly.
• I will treat others as I wish to be treated.
• I will focus on feeling positives, and finding positives in any negatives I encounter.
• I will live in the now.
• I will feel as well as think.
• I will focus on abundance.

Happy New Year to all!