“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” – Carl Bard
Light and playful aren’t usually words associated with New Years resolutions. Good goals are supposed to be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Well, I haven’t been feeling SMART. The air this month is heavy, and I have coped by bouncing from book to book and journal to journal in search of light and meaning. So, I made a whole lot of resolutions, some SMART, and some not at all so, like “trust your intuition,” “attract inspiring people,” and “don’t worry so much.” I told myself I’d check in at the end of the month and—true to not worrying so much and trusting my intuition—adjust as needed.
Here’s where I stand, one month in: What went best about the SMARTish resolutions was the kindness and grace that I let soften their edges. In a different year, in a different mindset, it would have been easy to call this failure instead of grace. Which tells me the line between them is thin and mostly in my head.
The magic, though, has been in the unSMART goals. I wrote them down at the top of my “to do” list, so I look through them each day. Twice, I have listened to a gut feeling, turned the car around, and changed plans, only to feel much calmer for the rest of the day. Once, I glanced at the goal of attracting inspiring people just as I got a text from a new friend about getting lunch to talk about creativity and soul searching. As for worry, I’ve had the most success picturing worries like the invisible monsters in Ruby Finds A Worry, one of Noa’s favorite books. It’s up to me to shoo them away and choose where I put my attention; I don’t need to give them a life of their own.
It's been really lovely so far, this plan to resolve one month at a time, especially for these more abstract goals that would promptly leave my brain if I didn’t check in.
Tomorrow we turn the calendar page, making way for fresh goals or the same ones, re-intended. As Oprah wrote, “Cheers to a new month and another chance for us to get it right.”
I’m experimenting with cadence for this newsletter over the coming months. I’ll be back in two weeks, on Friday, February 14.