More Thoughts about New Year’s Resolutions

Well… after writing about New Year’s Resolutions the other day, I have had a few more thoughts… or rather, I liked what I wrote a year ago and decided to pull that up and rerun it this year…

I love New Year’s Eve and the beginning of the new year. It’s like a blank slate. You get to start over again!

Whatever may have held you back during the previous year, you can do better this time. So what is it you’d like to do better this time around?

Here’s the deal with New Year’s Resolutions though…

So many people have been making the same ones over and over again, and by the end of the second week in January, they were history. And yet, when a new year rolls around, they make them again.

This is a baaaaad idea!

Why? Because you’re teaching your inner self that you are a failure. That you’re not to be trusted. Each time you let yourself down, you have even less of a chance to make it next time.

So this year, don’t do it the same old way. After all, you want to empower your inner self, not frustrate it.

Before you make (and/or break) your new year’s resolutions, stop and think!

Oh, and yes, I know, we’re already halfway through January. But that’s okay. Take your time. You don’t REALLY want to wait till NEXT year, do you?

New Year’s Resolutions, Done Differently

I wrote about a different approach to New Year’s Resolutions last year too, and so this year, let’s take another go at it…

Step 1:

Figure out what you REALLY want to accomplish.

Step 2:

Divide it into doable steps.

Step 3:

Make a commitment to take the first step.

Step 4:

Make a commitment to take the next step. Etc.

Step 5:

Repeat with other worthwhile goals, but be sure not to overwhelm yourself.

Note that I said “doable steps” – the idea is that you should make it attainable, and you should make it something that really matters to you.

In a recent year, I wrote about making not New Year’s REsolutions but New Year’s Projections.

I envision my new year and what I want to happen. Then I come up with action steps and take them, one at a time.

This is not a contest. It’s your LIFE!

So let’s not make resolutions to beat ourselves up with. Instead, let’s make some that inspire us to bigger and better things. Let’s come up with envisionings to live our dreams.

So what is it YOU want to have happen in your life this year?

What can you do to make it come true?

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The Key to Successful New Year’s Resolutions

Focus on doing the things that are under YOUR control.

For example, if you want to get published, start writing.

And once you have written things, make sure they’re really good.

And then, submit them for publication – in suitable places.

There’s no reason why you can’t stretch and aim for the moon, but also consider what would work – i.e., in this case, consider your audience, and your competition.

I remember the first poem I ever got published in a “real” literary magazine. It was “Chemoceremony” – and you can check it out on my Average C Cup site.

It was the first Villanelle I ever wrote, and I put my all into it. I spent days writing it, and I was very pleased.

It was a poem about how I turned chemotherapy into a sort of ceremony, and I had thought for a while about how I might merge those two, and one day it clicked.

And since that poem was a villanelle, a specific form, I decided I wanted to send it to the Formalist.

Now the Formalist is a pretty competitive journal, plus it won’t accept multiple submissions. But I felt that this poem was right for it, and I decided to send it.

And bingo! They liked it too, and published it! Woohoo!

The reason – I knew the journal and I knew my poem was a good fit. So I took a chance at a long shot and it worked.

Of course, I also submitted lots of poems in a variety of places that were rejected, but that was just part of the “game.” I kept at it, and by the time I published Average C-Cup, most of the poems in there had been published in literary magazines.

And all it took was a commitment to keep sending them to suitable places.

So as you consider your goals, make it about taking action. Also make it about getting GOOD at taking action.

If I hadn’t worked on getting good at writing poetry, and at selecting the right publications, and writing well-crafted letters and submitting in proper format etc., I wouldn’t have been successful.

But I would never make a commitment to get this many poems published. That was not something that was under my control.

Still, if you take right action, with the right attitude, with the right kind of “New Year’s Resolutions,” and with visualizing success, chances are that you get where you want to go.

And with that, do what it takes to make this year a FABULOUS one!

Elisabeth

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