The Newest Year
Plans and personal resolutions
Hopes and dreams are wonderful things… but plans and present action is all that really matters when it comes to maintaining and improving one’s life. There’s never any reason to wait until the New Year to implement a program of self-improvement. If you want to get better in a certain area:
Read and study-find out what research and science says about the target subject.
Write down your ultimate goal… and keep writing it down, regularly.
Set manageable goals for the near term and begin working towards them.
If you backslide don’t become discouraged or careless. To borrow a phrase from addiction treatment, “relapse is part of recovery”. Get right back to your program and use whatever transient disappointment you may feel as motivation.
Tell other people about your goals and be honest about your progress. If possible find an online or co-located group of people striving in the same direction. (Disengage if you realize that these people aren’t successful or are toxic; many people use self-improvement commitments or recovery groups as forums to gain attention and these people are worse than neutral for your program).
When you achieve your goal(s) take some time to enjoy your new status and your admirable achievement. Self esteem comes from doing estimable things.
After your ultimate goal(s) is/are met… set another.
These are my continuing commitments for myself in the new year:
Continue to abstain from drugs and alcohol
Complete this iteration of stepwork and continue to look for sponsees
Find a local regular volunteer opportunity and integrate it into my schedule
Resume Brazilian Jiu-jitsu after my next paycheck
Continue increasing my fiction writing practice
Continue my fitness schedule: 15 workouts per week, including 4 sprint sessions and 3 weight training periods
Continue my prayer and meditation
Increase my running distances
Sign up for a 5K race, and then a 10K race
Continue re-establishing old friendships
To dwell in memory or regret, or dreams of the future, is a great waste of one’s life. The past is a memory and the future is a mental projection. Neither exists. The present is all that is-all that ever is. Live in the present and experience the fullness of each moment. Practice this element of mindfulness and constantly remind yourself that each trouble and annoyance and misfortune is manageable and acceptable… and happiness will be yours.
God: grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Excerpts from the Big Book of AA
“When I am unwilling to do the right thing, I become restless, irritable, and discontent.”
“When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.”
“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.”
“Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have - the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them.”
