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Motivation
How to Get Through the Mid-January Slump
Tips to negotiate beyond New Year’s resolutions.
Posted January 22, 2024 Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano
Key points
- Knowing why something matters is helpful to achieving goals.
- Often, we train our brains (inadvertently) to disregard our promises.
- Being in perpetual motion is not a sign of success.
As January passes its midpoint, most people’s New Years’ resolutions have already fallen by the wayside. It is worth exploring some of the reasons why and considering some better ways to negotiate beyond resolutions for better outcomes.
Here are a few tips to successfully step into a bolder vision of the future that is more likely to stick than typical New Years’ resolutions.
Tie Resolutions to One’s Bigger Vision
Many resolutions tend to be specific, task-oriented items. This approach is limiting. Changing long-time patterns is tricky if not tied to bigger dreams and desires. The first step in this negotiation is getting clarity around one’s desires. It’s critical to make a decision to live into one’s most extraordinary life and be clear about what that entails.
Instead of identifying a task as a resolution, it is more productive to seek total clarity for what one desires at this stage of life. It is worthwhile to take the time to explore and answer that question. Uncertainty around what one desires leads to an ongoing pattern of randomness.
Tap into One’s Big "Why"
Tied to seeking one’s bigger vision is exploring one’s unique, deeper "why". Knowing why something matters is key in any effective negotiation. Rather than focusing on task-driven items or results in isolation, digging deeper to consider why a particular item drives one will lead to stronger outcomes. Consideration of the deeper "why" gives the necessary inspiration and energy to live into the desired outcomes.
Keep Promises
Human brains try to deliver what they believe is sought. This becomes problematic, given that most people consistently break their promises to themselves. In so doing, the brain becomes trained to disregard those promises, believing the goals are not genuinely held. And so, it ignores these promises, thinking they do not represent the true heart’s desire.
The good news is that one can retrain the brain to take goals seriously. The two steps above will help with this—get clarity around one’s desires and tap into the deeper "why" for the inspiration to take action on the journey to fulfil one’s life vision.
Live With Intention
Most failures in life come from not being intentional enough. In each moment, one can choose how to react to each stimulus placed in front of them. While external factors and circumstances may be beyond one’s control, taking advantage of the pause between any given stimulus and response allows the room for personal choice and growth.
Rather than seeing oneself as a victim to whom life happens, there is great potential power in assuming ownership of one’s life and ensuring life happens for them. The more intention one brings to their daily existence, the more they will be enabled to take control to live their best life.
Implement Routines to Manifest Desires
Most people fall victim to living to-do lives, and sadly, the to-do items don’t serve to help manifest desires. They drain energy. By contrast, seeking routines that bring aliveness will uplift and set one on the path to their dream life.
It is important to be intentional about setting routines that embody one’s desires. Routines should be aligned with one’s core values and vision. There is power in making sure the things one does is attached to the outcomes they seek.
Let Go
It is key to recognize that not everything will be in one’s control. Letting go of the need for everything to be perfect is necessary.
While no one can control everything that happens, everyone can choose how they react to the stimuli in their lives. Letting go of the rigidity that comes with attachment to particular outcomes opens one to summon better, more creative outcomes and versions (of themselves and their experiences). In doing so, one invites the universe to conspire to support them.
Create Space
Societal conditioning has led to beliefs that being in perpetual motion is a sign of success. This has created an epidemic of chronic fatigue, both physically and mentally. Instead, what if everyone opted to create space in their life? Set aside their phone, laptop, social media, and never-dwindling email inbox? Built space into their life? Space for thinking time. Space for meditation time. Space to talk a leisurely walk in nature. Space to simply ‘be’ with oneself.
Curate Community
Connection is a basic human desire. Most dissatisfaction with life is about the quality of one’s relationships. In fact, studies show that longevity is directly connected to the quality of one’s relationships. Accordingly, it seems obvious that one ought to ensure that goals include improving relationships and that routines help to deepen those relationships.
Being intentional about curating one’s community and inner circle will elevate life experiences and help fast-track the path to one’s life’s vision and dream. It is often the people with the closest connection who, no matter how well-intentioned, sap energy with their negative input, raising concerns about myriad things that could go wrong in pursuing one’s heart’s desire. Accordingly, it is important to spend one’s valuable time with ambitious, generous people who inspire them to be their best.
These simple tips will help refine resolutions, by encouraging one to look beyond them, helping to negotiate one’s best life by achieving what they deeply desire and deserve.
