What’s Your New Year’s Resolution?

I’ve never been a great believer in New Year’s resolutions, but I am a believer in the possibility of change.

The choice of New Year as a time to make changes in our lives seems to me a bit arbitrary. It’s as if we are letting the time choose us rather choosing the time because it is right for us.

Under these circumstances we tend to pluck our resolutions rather randomly out of the air. And having plucked them out of the air we let them wither all too quickly - because, after all, the air can be a trifle cold, grey and dispiriting in early January.

Then we console ourselves with the thought that we are as we are and we can’t really change; or we’ll put change off just a little longer. The truth often is that we don’t really want to change, because staying as we are is easier and safer.

This is not to say that the start of the year isn’t as good a time as any to bring about change in our lives.

Change, however, cannot just be brought about by a rational statement of intent. We need to draw upon deeper resources if we are to make a real and meaningful alteration in the way we live.

Change is very difficult and can have a domino effect. A change in thinking, behaviour, habits or lifestyle not only affects us, but also our relationships with other people.

Despite the risks, however, change is often good for us, not change for change’s sake, but change that we know deep down we need to make to bring us happiness and fulfilment.

So if you have made a new year’s resolution why not make it a real and meaningful one this year? Give it some time and thought - and bring about genuine change in your life.

JG