New Year's Resolutions (and the emotions that help you achieve them)

During my Emotion Integration show on Thursday, we discussed New Year's Resolutions. This is a topic that a lot of people have advice on. Googling "how to set New Year's Resolutions" will return a slew of links to tricks and ideas on how to make this year different.

Most people I know don't even bother with making resolutions. Some folks who really want to make lasting changes in their life start out with the best of intentions, but you know the drill - they end up overwhelmed, discouraged, and depressed by the 2nd week of January. Maybe you are one of these people.

In all the search results google may give, I bet you will not find the advice that I am about to share with you on how to succeed at your resolutions: Channel the wisdom and energy of your emotions.

A resolution will not succeed with intellect alone!

To be sure, if you do not know how to work well with your emotions - or understand the messages and wisdom that they bring to you - you will be at a severe disadvantage when making lasting changes in your life.

Here are 5 emotions that are crucial to the success of resolutions:

• ANXIETY Now, when most people hear the word anxiety they think of something like a panic attack - heart racing, palms sweating, overwhelm, and lack of ability to do much of anything productive. That's not the kind of anxiety I am talking about. In DEI, anxiety is one of the 17 emotions, and (as with all emotions) - when it is at its healthy, free-flowing level - it brings you important gifts and skills.

  Anxiety is the emotion that gives you the energy and focus you need to: make goals, organize, strategize, motivate, and stay on task to achieve your goals. Anxiety is what steers you back from procrastination - as long as you learn to engage with it, and when you're feeling anxious, ask yourself - "what really needs to get done?".

• SADNESS A lot of New Year's resolutions have to do with letting things go, and that is right in sadness's wheelhouse. Sadness is the very emotion that helps you let go of things. If there are relationships that just aren't working, or belief systems, ideas, habits - the power of sadness will help you move on. You might be uncomfortable welcoming sadness into your life, but when there are things that aren't working anyway - it's those things that are the real problem. Sadness comes as gentle waves, to help you wash those broken things out of your life.

• CONTENTMENT I would argue that this is one of the most important emotions to consider when working on your resolutions. Contentment, as we define it in DEI, might be better described as satisfaction or pride. Contentment arises when you succeed at goals, or when you are living up to your ideals and working towards being the person you want to be. It's that burst of feel-good I got this energy - and without that, you will have a very hard time sticking to any goal. Contentment works in partnership with Shame to keep you on the path to success!

• SHAME This emotion is highly misunderstood because there are two types. One type of Shame comes from external sources (toxic or inauthentic) and the other kind comes from your deepest self (authentic). Your authentic Shame is the emotion that arises to nudge you to go to they gym or study for that test, or steers you away from eating that extra cookie or making that snarky comment to your mother. The key is to tune in to your authentic Shame, and don't let it overpower your Contentment. Let these two emotions work together to keep you on the path, and allow you to feel good about your journey to reach your goals.

• ANGER This emotion is also misunderstood, because it has nothing to do with violence or fighting. Anger is about boundaries, and about being able to separate and distinguish between what belongs to you, and what belongs to other people. Anger is the emotion that helps you set boundaries, helps you define who you are and remember what is important to you. It also is crucial in helping you avoid enmeshment or the blurring between what you want for yourself and what others want for you.

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This is just a quick run-through, of course. If you'd like more information on how to use these emotions to help you achieve your goals, let me know! Check out some of my past posts (listed below) for DEI mindfulness skills that can help as well.

Happy New Year!

May the Wisdom of Your Emotions Guide You to Success!!

Here is the split-out segment from Thursday's show if you'd like to listen:

Episodes with links to empathic mindfulness skills

• Grounding and Boundaries (starts at 1:12 in video)
• Burning Contracts (starts at 1:29:10 in video)

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