How to Design (& stick to) Your “New You” New Year’s Resolutions ⋆ Earth and Water

The new year is just around the corner. That means a new start. A new you. The annual holiday of rebirth and transformation for most of us.

I’ve never really subscribed to this, new year, new you thing. For the same reason that I don’t think we should wait until Monday or the 1st of the month to start a diet or create a new habit.

I believe these are all stalling methods and if we “wait until” for anything in our lives we’re never going to get the outcome we desire. Different methods work for different people. If having a start date is what works for you, go for it.

That being said, What’s truly important is:

You know what you want to implement, change and manifest
You do it

So take some time to sit down and really think about this upcoming year. Magic happens when we create space around the things we desire to come forth. Meditate on it.

Clear your mind and allow the imagery to come to you. Reflect on all of the aspects of your life; personal, professional and everything in between. Know what is not aligning to your highest self. Know what your highest self needs to become in alignment.

Get out a piece of paper or open a document where you can type. Really take the time to decide how this new year is going to go. It’s a clean slate for you to design.

Self design

As above, so below. Everything, everything, everything starts within us. If we wish to create a new life, we first have to do the inner work. Or else we’ll just stay stuck in our patterns that have created our current situations.

It’s all deeper than “Losing weight” or “Saving more money”. Ask yourself: What roots lie behind these resolutions?

Is it that you truly want to lose weight? Why? The “Why” is the true goal. Is it:

Because you want to look good in a bikini?
Because you want to go clothes shopping and it not be depressing?

Or is it really:

Because you want to feel comfortable in your body
Because you want to love yourself
Because you want to be happy when you look in the mirror
Because you want to be healthy and glowing
Because you’re exhausted with being insecure

Is it truly that you just want to “Save more money”? Why? It’s probably not for it to just sit there. It’s probably something more that looks like:

So I can feel more safe and secure.
So I can be more stable and less stressed.
So I don’t have to rely on anyone
So I can finally be happy
So I can have some free time
So I can buy XYZ which will make me feel ______.

But the saving of the money isn’t going to really get you those feelings. The losing of the weight isn’t going to get you those feelings. Those resolutions are only what you think are going to get you those feelings.

But they won’t unless you address the underlying issues. The why under the why.

How did you come to be in this situation?
Are you being completely honest with yourself about it?
What are your beliefs surrounding this issue?
Did someone else lead you to believe this way?
Are these true or false beliefs?
Are they yours or someone else’s?

Without addressing these root causes to your problem, it doesn’t matter if you lose the weight or save the money or make whatever other superficial goal you have. You still won’t feel satisfied, happy, comfortable, peaceful, stress free, etc, etc.

It’ll just be a temporary fix. A bandaid on a wound that requires stitches.

Designing Your Resolutions Step 1

Take a moment with your piece of paper or word document and, for the time being, set aside what you think your new year’s resolutions are.

Instead, paint a picture of your ideal self and life. Answer all of these questions in as much detail as possible:

What do you look like?
What do you wear?
How do you feel physically? Mentally? Spiritually?
Where do you live?
What do you buy?
What about work?
Your relationships?

Detail out your ideal average day. Starting from the moment your eyes open in the morning until they close at night. Be insane. Be impractical. I don’t for a minute want you to write this in a “What do I believe my life can look like in X amount of time”. I want you to ignore all logic of getting from point A to point B and just dive head first into IF YOU COULD CREATE ANY LIFE RIGHT NOW, What would it look like?

What does your morning routine look like?
Then what?
What’s for breakfast?
- Lunch?
- Dinner?
- Snacks?
How’s work? How’s your perfect day going there?
- How does it feel?
How’s the commute?
How’s the interactions with everyone from the store clerk to your coworkers?
Did you talk to a loved one on your break?
Did you get the best parking spots?
What do you do when you get home for the evening and settled in?
What do you do with this leisure time?
What are your hobbies?
What does your bedtime routine look like?
What time is bed?
What time do you wake up to so it all over again?
How do you feel?
How do you feel?
How do you feel?

The magic is in the details of your resolutions.

CREATING THIS should be your goal. Brick by brick. Little by little.

Designing Your Resolutions Step 2

When you’re finished, take a step back and look at it in comparison to your current life. What things from this story can you begin to bring forth into reality now? What things are the easiest to work toward?

Can you start eating this way?
Crafting these morning and night time routines?
What sort of things would bring about these feelings you desire?

I read about this whole exercise a hundred times when I began looking into the Law of Attraction and “How to be successful” type of things.

I found it all fine and dandy. I understood (sorta) what they were trying to get at but it didn’t seem very efficient to me.

You can only start where you are. And where I started was at the bottom of the bottom of the bottom. My ideal life was so vastly different than my current one that I couldn’t seem to find ways to start bringing it into reality.

I wanted to eat organically and healthy. But those things cost more money. Money that I didn’t have. I also hated to cook so knowing what to do with the beautifully fresh produce that was on my ideal shopping list was impossible.

Not only did I have to conquer my own scarcity mindset around this, On the other side was my husband’s scarcity mindset. Frowning, furrowing and disproving of my pricey apples and carrots.

I couldn’t exactly throw out everything toxic in my home and buy new, nontoxic cleaners and self care items and such. That cost money too.

So my coach told me, “Focus on the feeling of having the things without actually having the things. What would make you FEEL relaxed, luxurious, healthy, happy and stress free?”

Gee. I dunno. A massage? But that costs money too..

I was so far away from my ideal life that I saw zero ways of bringing any of it into being right this minute. I couldn’t even get something as simple as a sleep schedule going because I had a newborn at the time.

I was completely and utterly stuck.

So, my solution? Make more money. Obviously.

And so I tracked through the world of creatives, coaching, spirituality, health, content creating and absolutely everything in between. Creating courses that failed. Webinars that failed. Ebooks that failed. Group programs that failed. One on one programs…that failed.

Tons of things. For years. That FAILED.

But I kept trekking. Kept trying. Kept creating. Learning. Because I thought more money would get me to my ideal life.

But it didn’t.

What got me to my ideal life, that today looks VERY close to the story I had written in this same exercise so many years ago, were small and constant things.

One small, itty bitty, tiny piece of mindset work at a time.

I started buying a couple of pieces of organic produce at a time. Staring at it in the grocery store for an akward amount of time. Trying to convince myself that the “organic” part was worth the extra $1.50.

Limiting myself to the amount I bought of it. Sometimes failing to convince myself to buy it over the “regular” cheaper produce. Feeling guilty when I got home for feeding the non organic to my baby. Beating myself up for letting my scarcity mindset control my actions again.

And I grew. Piece by piece my ideal life started to form. Until my whole shopping list was organic and healthy and it wasn’t even a thing. Until all of the toxic things were used up and replaced by better, safer solutions. Until my mindset was not crippling me from creating the life I knew I wanted but didn’t feel I deserved. And here I am now. Reaping the benefits of my persistent hard work.

Money barely changed anything. It was 100% all mindset work. So if you’re feeling in this position right now, I want you to know you have copious amounts of hope and progress to look forward to. As long as you don’t give up. How bad do you want it?

Designing Your Resolutions Step 3

Bring what you can into being. Create space around the rest.

You now know where you’re going and often times that’s the hardest part. It’s easy to know what you don’t want, but we tend to have trouble knowing what we DO want.

Now you just have to fill in the spaces in between here and there. Which, once again, sounds all fine and dandy…but how?

One piece at a time. Now that you’ve got your story lain out, make a “to do” list from it. For example, mine would have looked something like:

Organic eating
Nontoxic home
Financial “Security”
More free time
More self care

And then focus on one aspect at a time. Pick ONE of the things on your list to focus on for now. Surround yourself with aspects of it.

Google it
Pinterest it
Make a vision board of it
Find a book or a podcast on it
Completely engulf yourself in this one subject

While you’re engulfing yourself in it, keep a look out for things about it that you can IMPLEMENT.

You can have all of the knowledge in the world on something, but unless you take some steps toward your resolutions, you’ll never have it.

Implementation is where a lot of people get stuck. Or they try to do too much at once and get overwhelmed until they shut down.

I highly recommend recruiting some help.

An accountability partner
A support system

But be careful with who you choose. Many people are the opposite of helpful and aren’t very good at keeping anyone accountable. The wrong person will stall and destroy your progress.

And this is where I leave you. Finding your ideal life is in this process repeated over and over again. Your ideal story may change with time. That’s normal as you evolve and grow.

Focus on how you want to FEEL. Emotions are vibrations and hold our greatest power. Keep it simple and consistent. The long way IS the short cut to accomplishing and succeeding at your resolutions. Do the work.

Tell us in the comments below what your resolutions are and Make sure you join our Facebook group for daily mindset work!

Join FB group