Tag Archives: intention

Lose New Years Resolutions Find Year Long Intentions

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I am guessing like most people, you have defined your resolutions for the next year. How do they feel?  Most likely your resolutions are maintenance type resolutions to take care of something with your physical self.

Resolutions such as losing weight, quitting something, or exercising more are common resolutions that are made each New Year. These resolutions are for the most part hollow, and generally groundless.

New Years resolutions are rarely followed over the whole year. The first days and weeks resolutions are fresh and part each days focus. As weeks three, four and beyond arrive, resolutions that were made so firmly, start sliding down the what is important today scale.

Should any of these resolutions really have been be made? Are any of these resolutions really important in life? Are those resolutions only space fillers or place holders, forgotten by the end of the month? Most importantly, do resolutions make anyone feel good way inside where it counts?

Perhaps it is time to make real choices that mean something, and will potentially make a real difference each and every day of the next year, and every year after. I suggest my rule of three to help make real resolutions. This rule of three creates a timeline of the year. Use the rule of three to split the year into: this week, this month, and this year.

Instead of making resolutions, add value to your life this year and create intentions. An intention is to have a course of action, resolution is simply finding a solution but not acting on it. When creating your intentions, make intentions having a path making real changes in your life.

Pretend it is possible this next year may be the last year you will be alive. If the idea of this next year being your last year alive is scary, think about people you knew or heard of, who thought they would be here this year, making yet another list of resolutions to be forgotten after a few weeks. Being alive means accepting we may be one of those people that someone alive pauses to think about this time next year.

Now that resolutions are out and intention is in, it is time to take the next step. Look at your next week, starting tomorrow, the day after, or whatever day you pick as the start of your week. What can you do to make a real difference in your life that will make you feel and those around you feel good? What will you intend for the next month that can not be done in a week? What will you intend for the remainder of what may be your last year that you can not do in a day or a month? What changes can you bring into your life that will actually mean something.

Here is my New Years rule of three. What are you going to intend for the next week? What are you going to intend for the next month? What are you going to intend for the next year? Thinking in this way is acknowledging our mortality, and focusing our intentions in manageable periods. Combined in this manner intention becomes a powerful reality, and a life tool everyone can use.

Each of our lives are unique, as are our life situations. Below are some suggestions of what you may wish to intend in your life. Intention will improve your life, and the lives of all who will enter and leave your life next week, month, and year. Read these thoughts over and change them for use in your life or use them as starting points for totally new intents in your life.

Resolutions are generally weak and lead to yet another failure on the list of many. Thought out meaningful intentions are powerful life changing tools which make you grateful to be finally alive.

Here are some thoughts to help create intention for your personal use:  Tell a parent, sibling, or friend what you really want to tell them; Find out peoples names who are peripheral in your life, and tell them how they change your life for the better by doing what they do; Be grateful and respectful to the once living things that are now your food; Learn about a people or culture you know nothing about; Learn more about your spiritual self.

Learn more about your religion and why you believe what you do; Read autobiographies, listen to audio books, or watch movies about people you admire; Learn another persons culture and beliefs; Create quiet time to be outside; Buy, plant, and care for a plant(s); Plant or place a potted flower in a needy public place and take care of it; Find someone you can help each _; Attend a church you have never been to; Eat a meal of food you have never eaten; Talk to strangers, strangers have something important to tell you about your life right now, ask them what it is. Look for ways to make a difference in someone’s life.

Here is an easy to remember thought: ‘To be resolute is to be unwavering, to intend is to have action and purpose. I create my life with intent.’

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Grease, sugar, and flour…learning how to eat correctly

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I started on a lifestyle change right before Christmas. I reached the point where I knew without a doubt that anything readily wrong with me was my fault, and if I did not change, I was not going to wake up healthier one morning. I thought about all the foods I eat that I knew I should not eat, and what they were doing to me. I had made the decision I was going to improve my eating habits, or I was going to die trying – hopefully a little literary extravagance in the expression. This time I was very serious, and I was going to make it work no matter what it took.

I started out well, at least I thought I was starting off well. I traded the man sized burgers, fries, and a coke for the woman sized portions, and the sugary soda for a diet soda. I added more vegetables to my meals. I ate a little less white foods, making up the difference in meats. Over the following two months I had lost about ten pounds. I lost that by eating little for dinner and waking up very hungry. Of course over the two months, I started making up for being hungry at night by eating more for breakfast.

It is really an interesting situation we Americans have ourselves in when it comes to eating. We generally eat more in some meals than we should be eating in a whole day. I won’t go on with what those meals are, other than to say they meet the taste requirements of the new American food groups are: grease, sugar, and flour. The more of these bad foods in combination the more we like them.

I used to work with a guy whose diet consisted of: Twinkies, canned vanilla pudding, and pop. That is all he ate every day. We all knew he was not going to live to long on a diet like that. We would talk about his poor diet while we ate burgers and fries. Later I worked with a woman who lived on toaster pastries and coffee. I was sure she was not going to make to another birthday. I thought these thoughts as I was giving up eating most pork, and all gravy – with a few exceptions of course.

Now it was my turn to really look at myself and help myself eat better. I thought maybe if I made sandwiches instead of burgers and had some corn chips, and diet coke my diet would be better. After a month of sandwiches, nothing had changed. Somehow my idea of eating better just was not working.

I did what I think I do best in these and similar situations. I decided I was suffering a case of wrong think. All I was really doing was substituting one poor food choice for another poor food choice. All the while thinking I was really changing my eating habits. All I was doing in reality was changing the composition of what I ate, while not changing what it was all made of. That was a hard pill to swallow, but it was better to admit I did not have a clue how to eat healthy, than to continue eating what I was eating. One meal out of the house I have always enjoyed was going to a salad bar. Watching other people at the salad bar, and their food choices started me down a whole new way of eating.

It is important to remember the idea that salad bar sounds healthy. Everyone there should be slim and trim, but they were not. Just like anywhere else, there was a mix of sizes. I grouped the people at the salad bars into two main groups. Those who were over weight, and those who were not. I started watching what the two groups ate for their meals. What I discovered really took me by surprise!

The more rotund people were eating about the same things I ate, a small plate of salad, followed by muffins, pastas, and ice cream with toppings. When I looked at the slim people they were eating salad, light soups, and one bread or muffin, and perhaps a small amount of ice cream for desert. What a difference in eating habits! I knew right then I needed to start eating like the slimmed down people were eating. I also knew I did not have a clue how to eat like they were throughout the day.

I found a book that promised to get me on the right track. The book suggested I would lose all the weight I wanted in the process, plus I would feel better each passing week. I had to ask myself, how many books make that promise? Well, when I went online to the bookstore, I found eighty-seven people gave this book an overall four point five stars on a five star scale. I thought conspiracy right away, what else could it be? There is no book that good. I read through some parts of it quickly and decided I liked what I read. It was straight forward, talked to me in a way I understood, and it made no frills attached sense. Except it was a vegetarian diet! A VEGETARIAN DIET! Who in the world ate like that? Obviously the authors and eighty-seven other people eat that way.

Thirty plus pounds later, I can attest to everything the book says is true, for me at least. Besides losing a lot of weight, I am still losing weight, and generally my health has improved more than I ever thought possible. I can’t say I am total vegetarian even though I ate tofu scrambled and spiced to look and almost taste like eggs today, along with a bowl of three bean chili and some bread that contains no grain, toast with almond butter, and an orange, all for breakfast! I still enjoy some chicken now and then, and I ate two pieces of beef, and two eggs, in the last month. Overall I can say I really enjoy the way I eat now, for no other reason than I am getting the results I want. I am also learning what it means to eat healthy, to eat right, and it feels so good!

I don’t have any intention of selling you on my new way of eating. Friends and family find it pretty bland, and can not believe I can eat the way I am learning to eat. For me it is the first of many baby steps as I learn how to eat right without following a manual of eating. What I am suggesting, is if you are willing to admit what you are doing in any area of your life is not working, there is hope and help waiting when you are ready to change. All you have to do is want to change bad enough that other things in your life become second to achieving your goal. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

That means you can do it too if you are willing to set aside what you think you know, and admit what you know does not work for you, whether it is eating, relationships, or life in general. Go to the book store, get on the net, or talk to people who seem to be doing it better than you do. When you want it bad enough, you will find a new way that works for you.

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Best of intentions do not get things done

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Getting things done is almost impossible at times. Not the Getting Things Done people use as a self management system, but creating any kind of real change at any level, be it school, work, or home. No matter how big your sphere of influence, you rarely have enough influence to change anything that really makes a difference if it involves any sort of organized group.

For example, I was a computer tutor volunteer at one time for a specialized community center. I had six to eight ‘students’ who would show up weekly for a two hour class. Most of them held job positions in their group, but knew little to nothing about computers except whatever their job was. So as the appointed volunteer in charge, it was my job to help them become computer literate. A simple task should not be difficult one would think?

I developed a schedule, and a training matrix of sorts, that would help them learn their way around Windows and eventually Office programs, but it was flexible enough that there was room to go over past lessons, and incorporate them into new learning. That is about the best any instructor can hope for. The classes went well for three or four sessions. Then the Director of Education for the group, decided that there should be some sort of testing at the end of each session so the progress of the folks in attendance could be evaluated. Would I mind making a simple test for each module completed?

A week after that the attendees were being referred to as students. As students, as long as I was now instructing them on using notepad and wordpad, couldn’t I add a little grammar instruction to my lessons? After all they were working with jokes and stories, and they were only practicing cutting and pasting to make the stories make sense, a little grammar should be easy enough to add.

The next week I was called into the Director of Education’s office. What nerve I had using that kind of language in this environment! I had to claim ignorance, as I was unaware of what sort of language I had used that was so offensive. I was handed a print out, with a highlighted word on it. It had been a joke that was to be cut and pasted until it made sense. Among the twelve or so lines of text, the word ‘crap’ was highlighted. I had to claim ignorance, as I did not know how such a highly offensive word could have possibly worked its way in a joke and exposed to a class of adults.

The next week, I had another meeting with the Director of Education. Wouldn’t it be possible, as long as people were showing up for class that I could take half the class time for formal instruction on English grammar, spelling, and basic math? I had to draw the line here for a couple of reasons. In the first place, the ‘students’ were writing on a low elementary school level, and needed more instruction than I could provide. Secondly, I knew little about formal grammar myself, although my math was okay. I was over ruled and given a grammar book to make grammar lesson plans from.

There are miracles in the world, and I was lucky enough to experience one of them. I told the ‘students’ that next week we would be doing half the session on formal grammar, and math. The next week I was an instructor in an empty room. The next week was exactly the same, empty. I went to the Director of Education and explained I had no students. I was told it was okay, if they wanted to learn to use a computer they were going to learn English and math also. After two more weeks, I resigned as computer instructor, English, spelling, and math teacher.

I thought this was a great example of trying to make a positive change gone wrong. Both the Director of Education, and I wanted to make a difference. The people who showed up for instruction had a willingness to learn to a point. Given enough time, they would have learned basic grammar, and spelling skills, and perhaps some basic math as their computer skills improved and they started exploring the internet. As it turned out, now computers are something other people use, and they have little use for.

At times we are like the Director of Education. We have the best intentions but we stifle any possibility of change before it even has a chance to start. Usually it is because of we do not do, but more often it is due to what we say, or do, because we try too hard and push people away. I think as people, we do not mind being slowly led, but we do not care much to be directed.

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