2020: Resolved

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by, as we approach the end of our beloved 2019. Well, I’m sure it was beloved for some of us. Me? I think it was a good year. Not as good as some, but it was still a very good year, a year in which I learned a lot about myself and developed in many ways I didn’t know I was capable of developing in—and I’m super excited to see what 2020 brings!

But today, for the last post of the year, I wanted to talk a little bit about the coming year, maybe just to put your mind a little bit at ease.

2020: Resolved

I know that a lot of you will jump on the New Year’s Resolution bandwagon. I know you will. And for some of you, you’ll even be able to carry those things out. But for most of us, it’s just not feasible. We set goals that we have no way of attaining, and when we realize that at the end of January, we just give up on it completely. I know that we do this, because I’ve done it too, and because statistically, it’s what most of us do.

And that’s what I’d like to talk to you about today. Because I think that by making resolutions, we’re putting a lot of undue pressure on ourselves, as we enter the new year. And I think we’re better off thinking of it as a little more of a blank slate, that can be whatever we want it to be. It doesn’t have to be about losing those fifteen pounds or learning not to eat so much junk food. Sure, those are good things, and probably things that you should be working toward anyway if that’s what’s on your heart to do, but it shouldn’t be 2020 that propels you into doing it. It should be you. It should be your decision, to make a change, to be a different and better version of yourself. And it should be you, to realize that this isn’t a goal you can impose upon a year, and expect the year to carry it out for you. You’re the one who has to put in the hours, and if you’re ready to do it, if your heart’s set on it, you’ll get it done.

In my opinion, New Year’s Resolutions are pretty much bunk. They’re not worth it. They’re pointless. They’re a resolution that we impose upon the months of January and (sometimes) February, before we finally throw the resolution out the window. What’s the point of that?

So instead of looking at 2020 as a list of things you want to change, a list of things you’re resolved to do, I want you to look at it as one thing.

What’s the first thing you want to do, in 2020? Which of those resolutions is the most important to you, and why?

Once you know that, once you understand the motivation behind the goal, it’ll make it a whole lot easier to stick through that one thing. And once you’ve made it through a month with that one thing, you can add a second thing in February, a third in March, and so on and so forth, until these things become the new norm for you.

Some of those things won’t take you a whole lot of time, and aren’t that important in the long run. So save those things for the end of the year, and focus now on the important ones, the ones you know will take you a while, and the ones you know will mean the most to you in the long run.

You can do this. You can be whoever you want to be. You can be what you want to be. I know you can. You just have to look at your opportunities in the right light.

As we say goodbye to 2019 and open the door for 2020, just remember, a new year is just that: it’s an opportunity. And you can do whatever you want, with it.

Knowing that… what would you do, if you could do anything? I think that’s a pretty good place to start.

[love]

{Rani Divine}