📌 ARE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS WORTH PLANNING?
Everyone will have their own opinion as to whether they plan new year's resolutions. Taken further, everyone will have a comment as to whether the idea works for them. So many of us set out with good intentions with the resolutions and often give up on them after a few days. So, is it all worth the effort?
Whenever we plan anything, we are drawing our focus onto it. Our energy is focused on the ‘what if’ element. What if I could achieve this? The issues start at this stage. We often plan to achieve something that is far more difficult than we realise and will take complete dedication to achieve success. There’s nothing wrong with having big dreams, but when it comes to succeeding with these as resolutions, we often fail because we overestimated our likelihood of completing them.
There is nothing wrong with trying and failing though. It is far better than not trying at all. And during the failure, we have made ourselves aware of what it will take to try again with more success.
| QUICK EXERCISE
Give yourself a few minutes to think of an answer to this question.
What one small challenge/task/desire would you like to achieve in January and February that would make a difference in your life?
Now write it in the comments below this edition, or/and on your working notebook. Bring focus to how you’re going to do whatever is necessary to achieve it for those first two months of the new year.
Noting it publicly, as you would be doing in the comments below will either work for you or against you. Writing the resolution will encourage you to not be ‘hung by your tongue’ and help you be inspired to succeed. But the notion of publicly sharing it might also put you off because you fear failure. It’s your call.
If you fail, you can be proud of yourself for at least trying. Do it now, or I’ll send the boys around!
✒ WORDS FROM SPIRIT-INSPIRED WRITING
| written on Friday 4th November 2022 at 01:56 am
Good evening. We are ready to begin. Clear your mind and just write the words you are hearing. You are in danger of having too active a mind. You were almost trying to decide what the subject was going to be this time, but you should know by now that it is us that make that decision on most occasions.
I have a question for you to ponder over after I’ve finished with you.
What would you do differently each day if you were to find out that you had a year of your time to live?
Now the problem that most people have with answering the question is that they do so with the comfort that it is only a rhetorical question and not really going to happen. But even so, most will declare details of things they’ll get done in those remaining days and weeks. They’ll suggest visiting lost or distant family members. Perhaps they’ll decide to go places they’ve not been yet but want to go. They’ll live life with more care for themselves for fear of reducing the time accidentally.
They’ll get all their things in order, such as wills. And as that time remaining reduces, they’ll panic even more and reduce their sleeping time. They’ll eat more food and their attitudes will change. They’ll become sad, disappointed and angry.
So why am I asking this question? Well, it’s not for the reasons you might think. I’m not asking it so you can appreciate your days more. Nor am I asking it because it relates to you, because it doesn’t. I’m asking it because time on earth is the most undervalued asset that you all have.
We know there’s nothing you can do to stop time flowing by. But there is something you can do with it now. That is to appreciate it more and spend more time being aware of the here and now. Living with your thoughts too much on future plans and events is a sure way to make time pass faster.
Many of the stress-related worries people have are future based. Worrying about things that might happen tomorrow. Even living in the past is stressful because too much energy is spent on missing things that happened and judging how much better those days were apparently, compared with nowadays. [sentence reworded from original]
Think of the timeline as the arm across the weighing scales. Too much time spent in the past and in the future off-balances the scales, whereas living in the here and now brings balance and stability.
When people have that example in their minds, they can learn to recognise how balanced their imaginary scales are. Time is precious of course. But a normal balanced life isn’t lived by constantly thinking about it. However, living life with an attitude and awareness of how time is used does bring with it more peace of mind.
Keeping the balance of mind right is one really good way to honour the time you have. Everybody on earth will, at some point, take their last breath. Worrying about it or when it will be is nothing more than wasting energy. Equally, worrying about every thought and moment of time is also wasteful energy. Being occasionally grateful by reminding yourself how important this time is, is appreciating the gift of time. Appreciation is one of the most powerful and positively charged emotions to live life by.
Have you understood my message this time? Thank you for letting my words be heard in your world.
Goodbye.
| ORIGINAL NOTES
🚩 AFTERTHOUGHTS
I think I might appear a little generous with that graphic, but there is a reason. In the first paragraph, a sentence reads, “now that it is us that make that decision on most occasions.” During the transcribing for this, I added the letter s to the word make because that is how I would have written it and I felt it was too obvious a grammatical error that it might distract the reader. However, the grammar suggesting extension I use for corrections in my writing would not accept it and no matter how I tried, it threw out the letter s as not being required. You see, if I had written that sentence from my own thoughts I would not have known to spell it the way it was spelt - without the s.
I found the analogy of the scales quite a useful way of understanding how the balance of life works. I created the above graphic to emphasise that point a little clearer.
I must confess that when I was writing the words of the speaker and they mentioned imagining if I knew I wouldn’t be here in a year, I couldn’t help but think, “what are you telling me?” Thankfully, they went on to make it clear that that was for the purpose of the lesson. Mmmm, I do hope so!
YOUR COMMENTS & FEEDBACK is always welcome on any of the content of this edition. Share them in the comments below or via email at media@spiritedtalkpodcast.com
Thank you Trevor and your Spirit Friend, a "Timely Reminder" to try to stay in the here and now, and focus on what is important and enjoy the "Time Spent" not worrying about how long we have is a wise thing to take on board and I thank you both for the reminder. Being grateful I always felt to be a good idea, but to have it confirmed as being one of the Best things to do and very Powerful is yet again really worth knowing.
I love that you tried to correct the sentence with an s but you were unable to do so. Thank you for your continued honesty Trevor. I would like to thank you and your Spirit Team for the Wisdom being passed on to us all. I am very grateful.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL! God Bless You All Too.