How Can 2023 be Different?

The answer is YOU. 

Things can be different depending on you and your choices, your thoughts, and your actions. Change depends on your receiving and on your giving.

Notice that receiving precedes one's giving. We are not self-made individuals. We absolutely cannot give out of an empty basket. 

The more a muscle is exercised, the stronger it becomes. It's the same with gratitude and possibilities. When come one counts on you to do something, you must deliver. It is the same principle with counting on yourself. 

We are in the third week of a new year. That can be a letdown after the pump of new year celebrations and the hype of incoming universal success. Physics speaks of time/space continuum so no worries. You still have time. You will always have time. 

Time is not the issue, action is. And perception is. 

Question: What would make you happy right now?

Stop and think. Speak it aloud. 

And now, are you confused?

Please notice that "make" is an outside force. The more I employ the fact that each individual has been given a freewill, and that we can utilize Choice Theory psychology in every mode of decision making, I realize that no one can make us do anything we do not want to do. It is always our choice. 

Even the choice to put off the "New Year" success race. Or not. 

A new year brings us face to face with the truth of life cycles. There is history to back up the "whys" of cycles, and the beginning of calendars, etc., etc., but the essence of cycles encompasses a much broader scope. 

There are cycles of all kinds - three meals a day, sleeping, waking, blue Mondays, TGIF's, months, years, breath, grooming, pay bills, taxes, laundry, work, birthdays.... 

Cycles unfold as repetitive patterns. But will they be new or the same old same old? Will we sleep through another year, or will we become awakened?

Consider this: An old year ends every day of the present year and a new one begins. No matter what day you choose to embrace the following concept, facts are when you change your ideas, your mind, your words, your intentions, your actions, you change your life. 

Why? Because life is relational. Life relates to us as we relate to life. Life is interpersonal. 

What are you wanting from 2023? What are you wanting from yourself? What are you imagining that you do not dare speak aloud? Or are you afraid to make plans because of past failures? 

As much as we want to think of a new year as magical, it just isn't so. The change must be within. It may be a new day, a new year, a new challenge, but if we stay the same, things will not change. It may be a new job, a new marriage, a new city, a new church, but unless we wonk on the inside character qualities, things will stay (or become) the same as now. 

Seeing where we are now, seeing who we are now, or what we are now, is one of the most challenging steps in getting where we want to go and being who we want to become.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT CHANGE

   1.  Change is the only thing that is permanent. 

  2.  Change is awkward and seems difficult because it is different.

  3.  Change becomes easier once you get over the fear of changing.

  4.  Change becomes easier once you see the benefits of change.

  5.  Change can be risky and well worth the risk.   

  6.  Change is slow and incremental but does not have to take forever. 

  7.  Change does not come by knowledge or insight alone, but by action.

  8.  Change is growth. To resist change makes growth difficult.

  9.  Change is accomplished through action.  

10.  Change is fun once you receive enough you can change.

True change comes with an adjustment in thinking, feeling, and doing. It is with intellect that we reason, weigh, consider, and understand the issues of life. It is with our emotions that we feel the issues of life such as joy, sorrow, pride, shame. It is with the will that we decide the issues of life. That we say yes or no to opportunities, yes or no to temptations, yes or no to actions.