Sunday, January 1, 2017

A New Year... New Ways of Seeing, and Believing, and Behaving

It's a new year... Happy New Year!

It's a time of new resolutions. Many are the desires to become more than we have been. Many are the opportunities for growth and renewal.

Taking charge of our lives is about being purposefully creative. We potentiate the process with acts through which we call ourselves to a spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual housecleaning. This requires us to truthfully unburden ourselves of those experiences that weigh us down in the miry clay of pain and regret. The objective is to rid ourselves of the hurt and guilt associated with bad experiences we have had, or caused. This is absolutely necessary before we can embark on the journey of renewal.

As we re-embark on this journey toward a more fulfilling life, we must walk away from the psychological, spiritual, physical, and social instruments and actors that are complicit in the life-thwarting episodes we want to turn away from. Talk is cheap. This is where the “rubber” of the commitments we make meets the “road” of our willingness to act out those commitments. This is where the demands of our renewal become real. It may mean new friends and associates. It may mean moving away from your familiar environment. It may require a new way of eating. New ways of thinking and acting and behaving are required for the renewal we seek. You may have to go back to school as you give up your old job in the club...or at the investment firm. The new you that you seek will need a new foundation from which to grow and develop.

Our personal journey to renewal demands that we commit ourselves to new habits. As humans we have come to think of ourselves as “creatures of habit”. Habit formation is a function of the repeated practice of the skills and behaviors we need in our improved selves. It is believed, and often said that, “practice makes perfect”. The remaking or redefining of our lives demands that we become new creatures through the renewal of our minds that come from the repeated practice of acts determined to speak with clarity about who we are and who we want to be. No longer must we be defined by the old habits, but by our new ways of seeing, and believing, and behaving.

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