My parents and I had a conversation the other day.

That in itself is not that newsworthy don’t misunderstand, I talk to my parents everyday.  It was notable in its content. Not notable really, just a little butterfly.

I was pointing out how much TV influenced, and continues to influence the way we see the world but specifically, my generation was affected by the difference of  TV from real life and I think that many of us got our ideas of real life through what we saw on TV.  Not just the shows we watched. but even more. the commercials.

It wasn’t so much the in your face stuff that stuck, with me at least, and from that I will bet there are many more, but the backgrounds.  The way houses looked in the commercials or how the people dressed.  It was subliminal advertising that burned into our brains not how life really was but how we wished it would be.

I bring this up because any of you who are at least as old as I am may have read the title to this post and thought of the campaign to get people to drink OJ all day long.  Or not.  I do that a lot, make reference to things that have stuck from TV or movies and sometimes give them my own

Maybe you just know that Resolve™  is a carpet cleaner and wonder what great uses I have come up with for it besides getting stains out of the carpet.  Well take notes because this is big.

Ok maybe not that big but you never know.

Today’s Mental Moment…

is about those pesky New Year’s Resolutions, and what resolve can do for you.

See here is the problem that has been plaguing me for years about resolutions and the reason  I usually wait until May to make them, if at all.

Every year on New Year’s day or around that time, we are faced with the end of one year and the beginning of another fraught with possibilities that we as a people generally get excited about.  It’s a good reason to let go of our old habits and start some new ones and whether it is something we have put in place to be able to have something to carry us over through the after holiday blahs in the dead of winter or what, starting over with a list of habits and goals we would like to achieve has become a tradition, the norm, what we do, almost as second nature as we do other things that are second nature and don’t really know why.

When I was a kid I used to think that when you made a resolution, the morning of January 1, whatever year it happened to be, would dawn bright and beautiful with a brand new way of thinking that would ultimately cause you to transform from the pile of crap you thought you were on the 31st to this great new ideal person you saw yourself as when your resolutions were …met?  completed?  Resolved I guess.

No one ever told me, and yea it may have been common sense to older people, but kids think differently and TV added to that magical thinking of instant transformation, that you had to only put your mind to the thought to be that ideal person.

As I got older I realized the fallacy  but even to this day, there are things I say I will do and then forget to do something to make that happen because in my mind if I say it will be so, so it will be.

Every year while it is something many people do, the joke is that not many people do them.

They, we. whatever, make resolutions then are disappointed and really hard on ourselves when they go by the wayside one to 100 days after being so strongly for positive change in our lives.  I have always thought well there is something missing.

Some key thing that people are not getting that needs to be part of the resolutions successfully met equation.

This year I made a couple which would just help me be a little more organized, a common resolution by the way, and thought I was not over reaching my abilities and if I could just do them I would be more productive and stuff.  In order to start my new habits that would lead to meeting my resolution goals I would need to get caught up so I could start on the ball not behind it like I always am.

This snowballed for me badly I got buried.

I have done this before, why am I surprised?

Consider This:

Really, I am not surprised at all and too, I am not as behind as I have been in previous years because as I have ambled along this little journey of life I have let go of many of the things that I was supposed to do just because that’s what everyone does.  I did swing a little to the opposite of maybe letting too much go this holiday season, however it afforded me a chance to add back the things I miss.  What does that have to do with resolve?

I make a resolution of getting organized staying with the program…blah blah blah for years, along with the typical; eat less sugar, exercise daily, stop smoking etc etc…

All noble, several pretty general resolutions that many people make in some form or another.

Every year I get closer to those goals but I stopped making resolutions because I, just like so many others, would get to December of the next year and realize I was the same piece of crap lump I thought I was the previous year ..

Ok just to be clear I don’t  think I am a piece of crap lump at all, it’s just to make the point –

where we are to where we think we should be.

According to who?  Nevermind…

If you find you have wanted the same things, year after year, really wanting them but failing to reach your goal of …perfection? then maybe I can help a little to ease your angst about resolutions, goals and failure.

Are you sure you aren’t making changes that are leading to your goals in small steps without even knowing it and not giving yourself credit for those changes?

I am just saying, because if you re-read above,

Every year I  get closer to those goals…

Because I really want to make them, but I failed to plan and I am not a good goal setting person really, but I still have moved toward them a little without even noticing it until just now.  What kept me going?

Resolve maybe?

Resolve is determination – without it, our resolutions are pointless.  You wont reach a goal, plan or no plan without the determination and desire to do it and be it, so if you are just going along with the masses and making those resolutions without even knowing why, you won’t probably ever get there, even with a detailed plan written out for you.

You have to want it for you.  You have to have the resolve to make the resolution work.

Resolve comes  from inside you and is only a word  if  stated due to pressure from  outside influences.

No amount of peer pressure can really increase your resolve to quit smoking if you aren’t  ready and aren’t  feeling it.  Successfully anyways.  You feeling me?

I say we all resolve to be kinder to ourselves and others..to look at those things we say we want and see if we are making tiny steps we haven’t before given ourselves credit for, and from there move those things to a mindful state, and then resolve to only make resolutions on a level of personal mindful living, which encompass only our deepest desires and needs…

then see how many people meet their resolutions.

When you make a resolution you are saying –

I am determined.

If you are determined – you will find a way.  Determination and resolve are the same..

Resolve ™ just happens to be a stain remover / carpet cleaner too.

Here’s a little secret for you; You can get your carpet clean with determination.

And elbow grease – but that’s a whole other Mental Moment.  Or is it?

To your Mental State, whatever it may be