New Years’ Resolutions have a reputation for setting you up for failure more often than not… When I did a Bing internet search for “failure+New+Years+resolutions” it returned 18,000,000 results! Can being grateful everyday have the same failed outcome?
There is a difference between setting a goal (resolution) just because the earth will begin another rotation around the sun, and your calendar starts on page one… and practicing gratitude everyday because, “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” – Eckhart Tolle
If your goals for the New Year were the most common New Years’ Resolutions, for example:
- to help others, be more generous and kind
- live a healthier, more fit lifestyle, lose weight
- pay off debt
- get better grades in school
- quit smoking, quit drinking
Gratitude would help you to achieve these and more.
Gratitude, according to the “What Good Is Gratitude?” (infographic) makes us:
- more giving
- more community minded
- healthier
- make more money
- have stronger relationships/friendships
- perform better academically
- make better choices, regarding addiction
- live longer
Do New Years Resolutions provide these benefits?Can you achieve Resolutions successfully without gratitude? No.
So, let’s then begin to refer to resolutions and Gratitutions and provide a frame of success and encouragement to achievement of goals each year!
As each New Year begins, how do you recognize it if you are celebrating the things you are grateful for from the previous year, and then creating an action plan for gratitude for the New Year? If you aren’t setting new goals, as some choose to do, many unsuccessfully, with resolutions, on January 1st, what will you do instead?
GRATITUTIONS Examples:
Gratitude Jar
On New Years Eve or New Years Day gather with your family and/or friends and create Gratitude Jars.
Once a day, several times a week, once a week (on a Sunday, perhaps)… you decide… write what you are grateful for and place it in your jar. The following New Years Eve or Day, gather together and read all of the things you were grateful for throughout the year. Then , start your jars again the next year with a celebration of gratitude, and continue to practice GRATITUTIONS!
Gratitution or Gratitude Box
It’s a Gratitude Jar, but in a box!
This is what we did this year as a family,with a few of our daughter’s friends, on New Years’ Day.
Gratitude Journal
Similar to the Gratitude Jar, just a different format… It’s a book instead of a jar!
You can write in a Gratitude Journal every day or once a week. You can list three things you are grateful for, or you can write a story. This is your journal. Again, just as you do with the Gratitude Jar, celebrate GRATITUTIONS on New Years Eve or Day with family and/or friends, each year!
Other
Be creative and create your own!!!
So what is the benefit of Gratitutions versus Resolutions?
New Years Resolutions focus on what you do not have, what you have not yet accomplished, failures… each New Year.
New Years Gratitutions focus on what you already have, what you are grateful for from the previous year, and how you can continue to build on that successfully and positively to achieve new goals each New Year.
Which one do you choose to ring in the New Year with this year? I know which one I’m choosing… the soon-to-be-famous, GRATITUTIONS!
Wishing you a joyous 2016 and a New Year filled with an abundance of gratitude!
Krista