Happy New Year!

Lots of people, including myself love the New Year, because it is a time of letting go and an opportunity to begin anew. What a wonderful concept, to draw a line in the sand and say to oneself, “I am leaving my past behind, “the would have, could have, should have”, all the regrets. Basically, what we are saying is, “ I am willing to accept myself and life the way it is, rather than the way I think I should be and the way I wanted life to be “.
Self acceptance and acceptance of life on life’s terms is at the center of inner peace.

Counseling and Life coaching teaches people to accept themselves, where they are, their strengths and weaknesses and make a plan for the future self that you want to be. Helping you get realistic about your goals and expectations of yourself. How many people join gyms or some kind of exercise program to later find themselves not attending? That is the downside of the New Years resolutions. Are such goals and efforts a waste of time and energy? Definitely not. Any action we take towards health does count. The error is usually in our unrealistic expectations. If you start out expecting to exercise 6 days a week, the chances are you will not be able to do this, as life gets in the way. If on the other hand, your goal is to exercise 2 days a week, you may end up exercising more often. But at least when life gets busier, which it will, you can maintain your 2 days a week exercise routine.

If we can make baby steps, and appreciate that all things take time to mature. We don’t go directly from A to B. There maybe stops along the way, it takes time to drive and it takes focused attention. In this world of technology and of quick fixes, it is challenging to have realistic expectations. A farmer does not plant potato seeds and expect he will wake up and have potatoes in a few days, or months. Yet, we expect that we should have changed our behavior by now and if we haven’t then we ask, “What is wrong with me?” As if, you are an imperfect human being. Which of course you are, “imperfect”, as all humans are. The problem is not that you are a “problem” to be fixed, but that you do not understand the process of change and you do not possess the skills necessary to change. Otherwise, we would have made the change already.

My focus is on teaching others, how to make change. To accept set backs and to be resilient. People who succeed are those who keep persevering. So, if you break your new year’s resolution, don’t dismay, learn from it, as to what got in the way and start over.

May this be your best year ever.