Watchwords - An Alternative to New Year's Resolutions

As the end of the year approaches, most of us are focused on celebrating the season and setting intentions for the New Year. For our family, even more so than usual, our celebration will be all about enjoying being together with good food, lots of laughter, and a little wine thrown in for good measure. It’s been both an exciting and a tough year. Liz and Jared made a huge life change when they decided to rent out their house, buy a sailboat, and live aboard. Caro bought a cute fixer-upper house with tons of potential at the end of last year and has spent the year doing renovations… and finding love. For both girls, the year has been filled with joys and not-so-joyous surprises. Engine trouble? Windows and doors that must be replaced ASAP? Falling in love with the vagabond lifestyle? Falling in love with a lovely man? Thankfully, the pluses far outweigh the minuses.

And that is the key. Looking at life as a whole and seeing that the pluses always outweigh the minuses no matter how bad we may think circumstances are in the moment. After all, circumstances pass and the more we focus on what we want beyond current circumstances the faster those happier times will come.

This is also the time of year when I focus on the year ahead and set my intentions for what that year will be.

Long ago, I gave up making New Year’s resolutions. They only work if you OWN a gym! Does this sound familiar? It's January 1 and even your fat jeans are too tight. So you join a gym and start off with a bang, probably overdoing everything. By January 30, you're burnt out, but haven't burned off a single pound - and you’ve spend most of your workout time thinking about what you "should" be doing instead. So then you start thinking “Maybe I’ll skip it just this once.” Besides, it's eating up so much time that there is no time left for healthy cooking, so you take short cuts and end up eating stuff you "shouldn't" and before you know it, another resolution has bitten the dust. Argh!!!!!!

So I no longer believe in New Year's Resolutions, but I do believe it is possible to set yourself up for success in the New Year. It just takes a new approach.

Instead of setting resolutions, adopt a Watchword. It's very simple really. You choose a word or phrase that becomes your theme for the year and use that as a benchmark for every decision and action all year. That's it. The beauty is that it teaches you a new way to be rather than just changing a couple of habits.

One year, I chose the word "jettison." The idea was to get rid of anything that did not serve me - relationships, habits, clutter, you name it. Part of the deal was to not bring in new stuff that would just become more junk at some point. It was a year of honing my decision-making processes and going deeper with what was really important.

Another year, my Watchword was "effortlessly." Anything too complicated, convoluted, or stressful was not allowed to make the cut. It taught me that simple is usually better and if we are having to strive too hard, we might be going in the wrong direction. It also taught me an unexpected and even more valuable lesson about how we block our own receiving through needlessly complicating things.

Another personal favorite was the word “enough.” That one took a lot of flack from well-meaning folks before they understood the real meaning. Always having enough – enough money, enough health, enough love – is the purest form of abundance. It’s easy to forget how much really is enough since we are constantly bombarded by advertising telling us that we “need” all sorts of things in order to be happy even though genuine contentment really comes from a deep understanding of the simple word “enough.”

And speaking of “contentment,” that was another great Watchword. True contentment happens when we learn to accept whatever is and enjoy each moment in gratitude even as we move purposefully towards our preferred future.

Sometimes the Watchword is a phrase. One year, I borrowed a popular saying – “No one can go back and get a new beginning, but anyone can start now and get a new ending.” It helped me truly accept that where I am right now at any given moment is right where I'm meant to be. But it also helped me weigh choices - would they take me to my preferred future or would they just keep me on the same old path. It's possible to set, and achieve, good goals that won't get us where we really want to be.

Resolutions, while well-intended, are inherently problematic. Too often, we take a pass or fail approach that is almost guaranteed to result in feeling like a failure. Or the list is so big we are overwhelmed before we can even get started. Or we set goals that are too far out without outlining the baby steps that will get us there. Or we forget that celebrating the baby steps is just as important as celebrating the goal itself. Riding high on a season of good cheer and excited about a shiny new year, we say "yes" to too much and are quickly swamped. So we toss out the whole plan and chide ourselves rather than acknowledging that we may have set ourselves up for failure in the first place. For many of us, setting resolutions falls into the category of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results!

Since starting this tradition, I have spent time every December reflecting on the year that just was and contemplating the year to come. The contemplation is rooted in gratitude - for “what is” right now and for what will be the "what is" a year from now. I ask myself what I want to be different in my life, what I want to be giving thanks for next December, and the Watchword emerges. Then as I go through the year, the Watchword becomes my barometer for choices. My Watchword is my guide, my muse, and my goals all wrapped into one neat package. Living by Watchword becomes a way of life, a way of being, a way of becoming your own best You. Or maybe it is simply a way to help me remember that I am already my own best Me at any given moment.

So amidst the hurry and scurry of the holidays, I hope you will make some quiet time for yourself and bask in gratitude. And think forward. What would you like to be thankful for this time next year? Then set a Watchword that will guide you there.