We have stepped into the New Year! How are you feeling? Have you been working out, exercising, and eating right or whatever your resolution was? Have you said so long to social medial or announced that you are deleting “friends”…lol that is funny to me. At the end of every year we all start making promises to ourselves then announcing them to the world, the resolution. I have never really been big fan of announcing what I am about to do. I am more of a fan of the Nike slogan, Just Do It! Or have you ready lost the zeal for the “promise” you made? Are you moving into the month still on task or did you dip? You know what dip is, betrayed yourself because that is what is what it is.
Why put off today what you can do tomorrow? That is what the procrastinator would say plus that is the wrong way to say it. I have heard it the wrong way for years. Ok, so let’s get this straight. You promise at the end of the year to do something at the beginning of the year BUT by mid-February you have gone back to business as usual? Think about that, I’ll wait!
Many times these promises or resolutions are about superficial things that really don’t require a lot of effort anyway. I have rarely seen someone post or say I am going to be a better person or I am going to go back to my dreams. That would be pretty bold, don’t you think. The people reading and listening would think you are crazy. If you say that in the company of a bold negative person they might laugh then point out something you really should be working on, in their mind.
I used to wonder why people didn’t stick to their resolution. Why every year they were saying New Year New Me but looking exactly the same, doing the same thing and ANNOUNCING the same slogan at the end of every year moving into the next year. It occurred to me that I used to do it to! I can say that I used to because I don’t. I started wondering why in the world I make wait to make a promise to myself the end of the year for the next year. Why not make the change or shift I knew was necessary when I realized it was necessary. WHY PUT OFF FOR TOMORROW WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY? Then the other part was, I still wasn’t satisfied or fulfilled. I know the rules, it takes 21 days to create a new good or bad habit. That just isn’t enough!
New Year Next Level became the way I lived my life. What that meant is that went back to dreaming again. I made the dreams my goals. At that point I didn’t have to announce to the world the COMMIMTMENT that I had made to myself. I didn’t have a point to prove. The thing that I discovered about many dreams is many of them are God given and they are your purpose. I often think back to some of my accomplishment. Some of them other people thought that I should have accomplished, so I did what I knew others wanted me to do. The others were things that I dreamed of doing.
When I was in the third grade, I remember being asked what I wanted to do when I grow up. I said I wanted to travel the world writing after my children grew up. I have done WHOLE bunch of things between the third grade to the ripe old age of ____. But when I put my finger on my happy points, my next level stuff came after I accomplished a dream. I have one grown child, almost grown then the last one is not far behind. That is a next level because that I dreamed of having children. I have published 4 books, next level.
Go back to your dreams! Go all the back to your room at mama’s house or your grandma’s house. The little person that wrote in journals, sang in the brush while looking in the mirror, built things but hid them under the bed. Get those dreams out of the closet dust them off and try them back on. Do they feel tight? Flex your muscle and stretch them. It won’t feel comfortable until you make it a goal.
The real reasons why that we fail, I have failed before too, to maintain our resolutions is because we have forgotten to live our dreams out for whatever reason: fear, shame, concerned what others would think. It is difficult to make a superficial promise and keep it when you can’t keep a commitment to your being. Stop living the life of a zombie, doing the same thing, going the same places, connecting with the same people. It is time to live a next level life and only YOU can create it! Go back to your dreams! Don’t remember them? Start writing and remembering back when you had no responsibility or pressures to be anyone but who you are. Place them on your priority list of goals. When you start living your dream, who you divinely created to be, your next level begins. Your dreams are your heart’s desires. God will give you the desires of your heart because He gave you the desires of your heart. Why in the world would a third grade me say that I want to travel and write after my children were grown.
Stop existing and start living your dreams by making them your goals. You won’t ever have to make another promise to yourself again about the New Year because your GOAL will have you on your Next Level everyday as long as you live.
