A Different Look At New Year’s Resolutions

by pressablealiassolutionscom

Welcome to Insights and Implications!

This is our first newsletter of 2020. It seems fitting to take up the topic of New Year’s resolutions. Read on for our take on resolutions and the role of our inherent mental design.

All of us at Insight Principles

A Different Look At New Year’s Resolutions

I will lose weight.

I will exercise more.

I will spend more time with my family.

I will stop procrastinating.

I will be more focussed.

These are few of the typical New Year’s resolutions I hear from friends and family. Maybe yours is on this list.

Do you notice a similarity with each resolution? All are hoping for a fix of some kind or to get more of something.

What if you resolve to remember the brilliant design of the human mind that is already present? What if, instead of looking for more, you became familiar with what you already have?

I’m an avid sea kayaker. I paddle the waters off the coast of Washington state where I live as well as the coast of British Columbia. I still remember the first time I got in a sea kayak more than twenty years ago. I was getting my first lesson from a friend. He helped me get into the boat and then pushed me out into the water.

I remember that I held the paddle over my head and started rocking in the boat. It was my mistaken attempt to find balance. Still on the shore, my friend yelled, “What are you doing?” “I’m trying to get balance,” I replied. “Well, quit it!”, he shouted back.

Later he explained to me that sea kayaks have built-in stability. They are designed to float and keep the paddler upright as she paddles. If fact later that same day, my friend made me tip the boat over on purpose in order to learn how to fall out and get back in. I was surprised at how difficult it was. I had to lean very far to tip over.

I tell this story because your mind also has a brilliant built-in design. There are capacities built into your mind that are at your service though they are frequently overlooked and under-appreciated. For example: you have the capacity for insight. You can have a new thought. You can realize something beyond your experience and education. It’s happened to you hundreds of times in your life.

Suppose you remembered that you have a source of insight and wisdom in you that can deliver perspective and creative thinking related to any problem you will ever encounter? Would you spend a lot of time tearing your hair out to solve every issue in your life or would you step back, reflect, and know that you will see what you need to see when you need it?

You’ve had a very complex problem to solve and seemingly out of nowhere, the solution appeared. You have been fully absorbed in what another person was saying and easily grasped the point, even hearing the subtle messages behind the words. You’ve been in a crisis and acted with swift precision even though you had no prior experience in such a crisis.

The equipment is there. It has always been there.

With awareness and understanding of your own mental resourcefulness, you can push less and get more done. You have more wisdom, insight and creativity than you can imagine. You can work less on yourself – and have a nicer life in the process.

Happy New Year!

Sandy Krot