New Year’s Freedom!

The new year is the year of new beginnings, new promises, and new commitments. Of course, we also all know the trap of day 17 or day 221, when we decide that we can give ourselves a break for having worked so hard, and do the thing we are resolved to move away from.

We all know that trap, the sense of discouragement, and secret shame we have towards ourselves when we don’t succeed. The whole thing becomes a mess, and we decide to wait until next year to start again. Using the classic “weight loss” resolution, we hang clothes on tread mills, avoid appointments with trainers, and leave the healthy meals we ordered in the freezer. 

It really doesn’t have to be that way.

Let’s start at the beginning:    

Resolution literally means to “untie again,” implying that something has become bound or knotted, and needs to be loosened or freed.

We really don’t like being knotted up or captured by something. A resolution is actually rooted in a desire to become untied and freed from the constrictions. Resolutions are about freedom, like a cast being removed or manacles being unlocked. We think they are about being bound and determined. They are not. They are about wanting to be “untied” or free!

To succeed we cannot start with a purpose and develop a plan. We must start with a passion that has a purpose—and then develop a plan.

What is passion? Passion is a willingness to be in pain for something that matters more than comfort. 

The motivation to succeed is in the desire, or the anger to change, not in the purpose.

*Do you have a passion that you can apply to a purpose?

*Are you willing to mess up, make mistakes, experience emotional discomfort as you begin to    risk a step?

*Are you willing to be humanly imperfect, a work in progress, or be in need to succeed? 

*Are you willing to struggle and own the feelings that come with the struggle? 

*Are you willing to be embarrassed by how much you care about change?

If you answered, “yes,” to any of these questions, you have a passion. Passion doesn’t make us powerful as much as it empowers our willingness to feel and seek help as we move towards whatever matters to us. Once the passion is accepted, then the purpose can be addressed.

As to purpose, it must be pure to be worth doing. A pure purpose does not have “should” in it. “Should” is a command that constricts or “binds” us to doing something because of external pressure. A pure purpose is something we need or want to do for ourselves. In other words, the purpose is internally motivated, i.e., back to passion. We purpose something good for us because we need or want it badly from within and that something is good for us. It will fulfill or gratify your own heart. 

If the passion is present and the purpose is pure, the plan can be devised. When a person has a passion for something and a purpose in it, the plan will be bigger than one can do alone. If we could do it alone, we would have already untied ourselves. A plan requires that we seek help to do that which we have not been able to do alone.

Once the help has arrived, accepting and dealing with realities of implementation occur. For a plan to succeed requires that we follow steps. Like 1,2,3, . . . .

We cannot go from 1 to 365 or from A to Z. It’s the old “Rome wasn’t built in a day” analogy. 

One day at a time is all we have. What I do in the day matters as much as the imagined result. The way to eat a steak is one bite at a time. No one grabs a cow and swallows it. If we follow the plan per day, before we realize it, we will have eaten a whole herd of cattle, one bite at a time. 

For a plan to succeed, one must assess one’s self by the day, not the picture of completion. If I compare myself to the end point desire, the gap between ultimate fulfillment and how far away I am from fulfillment sets me up to hate my passion, belittle the purpose, and sink in self-pity and toxic shame. 

Also, some days will be better than others. Reassess, get help, start again tomorrow; if the passion is present, the assessment, the help, and the restart will allow me to continue on a quest that grows me (changes me) no matter what the end results. I will find that I am untied from much more than I had planned on or fulfilled in ways that have nothing to do with the original purpose or plan. The passion will have brought me to one form of success or another. 

PASSION + PURPOSE + PLAN = SUCCESSFUL OUTCOME

I pray that we live a little more UNKNOTTED this year. Do it for you!

Written by Dr. Chip Dodd

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