Christmas has now come to a conclusion, and now it’s time to celebrate the new year. As I’ve gotten older, each year has made me reflect more then the last.
Resolutions are created to make this new year count. To make a difference and move forward.
Babylonians created resolutions over 4,000 years ago. They celebrated at the beginning of spring in March, when the crops begin to blossom. It wasn’t until Julius Caesar, did the Romans change setting their New Year’s resolutions to January 1 in honor of the Roman god, Janus.
Janus is known as the two-faced god who is able to watch the past year and also see into the new year.
The idea of making a resolution has stayed with us because it makes us excited for that extra bite. Our appetite gets increasingly more hungry. We prepare ourselves for a better, finer, and well deserved feast to come.
I love making resolutions! For me, it rarely works out that I’ll conquer a goal that I only ideally want, yet has no real meaning to me.
Gyms are always busiest after the new year because everyone sets a goal to lose weight. Most of us never keep at it because it’s just a nice picture to paint, but we have no real thirst for it.
To make a really great resolution, you need to first, just like Janus, sit down and really look at this past year in order to map out the upcoming one.
Make a list, in your head or on a piece of paper, of what you’ve accomplished in the past 365 days. Celebrate what you’re proud of achieving that hadn’t been in your life the year before. Pat yourself on the back and truly enjoy it!
Only then can you really make a list of resolutions that’ll set the course for the year to come.
What can you improve? What do you wish you could’ve done differently if only you knew what you know now?
To me, wishing to go back in the past and wanting to erase certain memories is very dangerous territory! There shouldn’t be such serious regrets you carry around with you, or how else will you allow yourself to grow?
Instead, be reflective. Consider where you are in your life and how you can take what you already have and use it as a tool.
You need to take these gifts of resolutions you made happen from past years, and spring forward.
It’s how you’ll blossom even more beautiful, stronger, and fuller than the past years!
Take a deep breath once the clock strikes midnight. Close your eyes. Breathe that first amazing breath of fresh air for 2014 in, and then exhale.
You’re springing forward!
