Resolves and Resolutions

How many New Years resolutions are kept? Probably not many. And most likely, the track record for the resolves we make at other times throughout the year isn't much better. So naturally, we get more jaded about making and breaking resolves with each passing year.

Of course it's demoralizing to make and break vows. No wonder we feel like giving up on resolves altogether, saying, "I know myself well enough to know that I won't keep my resolves. Why set myself up for disappointment? I won't suffer the pain of breaking resolutions if I don't make any." Fair enough! But do you know yourself well enough to know that NONE of that sits well with you?

Since it doesn't, rather than fear that cycle, maybe we need to fix it. Surely, the ability to set and achieve goals is too important -- not just on New Years, but all year long, in all parts of life -- to throw away lightly.

No matter how many resolves we've made and broken, our ability to make and keep resolves is still alive and well. We just need to understand and direct it better.

Look at these two facts:

1. The decision to "make no resolves" is a resolve. We're always making resolves, just as we are always choosing. Since we have the power to choose better, why not use it? Could it be that we fall for this trap:

Ego's limiting assertion: "You can choose anything you want -- UNLESS it's a choice for the better."

Ego has an insidious way of chopping people down over time. Whenever we find a flaw or weakness in ourselves, ego tries to convince us to accept the shortcoming as permanent, irreversible -- a limitation we're supposed to learn to live within. That way, through one reductive cycle of acceptance after another, the ego gets us to feel less and less functional as time goes on. One day, we just might give up on being a nice person altogether. Is that why Granny got so grouchy?

Beware of the limbo dance. The lower we set our sights, the longer it takes to get back to the higher values upon which our well-being depends. That's why lowering the bar puts us in limbo until we raise it back up again.

2. The resolve to make no resolves is actually a thinly-disguised choice to avoid higher choices -- ostensibly for the purpose of avoiding disappointment. But, to limit oneself to lower choices is, in itself, the world's greatest disappointment. What's more, it's downright disempowering. It denies our ability to make the higher choices upon which our greater happiness depends. Horrors!

We have no need to take the ego's advice -- and choose to confine ourselves to LOWER choices. We absolutely can choose anew --freely. That's what spiritual evolution is all about! We need to stick to our guns:

Spirit's response to ego's limiting assertion: "Oh yeah? Free will is God's greatest gift to us: It's a power that we always have, and always USE. Free will means we can choose ANYTHING -- including for the better.

As God's children, we all have an appointment with God -- with our own higher destiny. There's no disappointment greater than "not being able" to keep that eternal appointment. We may as well acknowledge that only better choices can give us the satisfaction we want. The only way to truly avoid disappointment is to pursue higher aspirations, embrace improved actions, and make better presumptions.

We can hold true to higher choices, and keep higher resolves. And spiritually, we certainly need that "win" -- and always will. Here are four tips to ensure your success in making higher resolves, and keeping them. Click here to read the four tips