Looking Ahead for 2008

I gave up making New Year’s Resolutions a long time go. It seemed like every year I’d make the standard resolutions about losing weight, being more organized, getting out of debt, etc., etc. And yet, before the end of January I would have pretty much forgotten them. “So what’s the point?” I’d tell myself. And whenever someone would start asking about resolutions and what not, I’d conveniently dodge the conversation.

But this year I got an email that asked what my New Year’s Aspiration was going to be.

Aspiration?

The idea behind this is that instead of focusing on a resolution to give something up, you focus on an aspiration to make a positive change in your life. So, instead of “I’m going to lose weight,” the aspiration would be something like “I’m going to take care of my body through eating healthy and exercising.” Instead of “I’m going to stop yelling at my kids so much,” the aspiration would be “I’m going to have healthy communication and a better relationship with my kids.”

The reason I believe this works is because focusing on the negative tends to bring about negative results, whereas focusing on the positive brings about positive results. If I spend all week dreading an upcoming meeting, that meeting is most likely going to go bad. If I dread it, it will more than likely turn out that way. On the other hand, if I’m optimistic about it, it will more than likely turn out positive.

I used to think that if I dread something bad enough, it will turn out better than I expected and I’ll be glad about that. Sometimes that was true, but not all the time.

So I tried this little exercise: I picked an upcoming event, one that I would normally dread, and whenever I thought about it I told myself that everything was going to turn out fine and I had nothing to worry about. I did that for a family get-together, for a counseling session with a particularly difficult case, and for several meetings that I’ve had with colleagues and supervisors.

And it worked!

Each one may not have turned out as good as I would have liked, but they turned out positive.

So, I’ve tossed out my New Year’s Resolutions for 2008 . . . already. Well, actually, I never really had New Year’s Resolutions for 2008 to toss out in the first place, but I’m replacing them with New Year’s Aspirations anyway!

What are yours?