The New Year is Here!!!…Again

It’s 6:30am on New Year’s Day, and already the feeling that challenging goals must be set and immediately pursued is overwhelming, the pressure to identify and implement New Year’s Resolutions is already near Chernobyl proportions.

The Pressure of New Year’s Resolutions

Today’s the day!

Today’s the day we begin our journey toward our “new selves.” Today’s when we jettison the tired, old, counterproductive, and unwanted parts of ourselves to make room for the New-And-Improved 2025 Version of ourselves…when we careen headlong down a brand new path we’re convinced ends at self-actualization.

Does the New Year Really Matter for Change?

Or, maybe we don’t care so much about the changing of the year, the resetting of our calendars back to January. Maybe we appreciate the symbolism of a new year beginning but realize that that particular “beginning” is arbitrarily chosen and that we could just as easily have decided that our new, more productive, and healthy lives would begin on August 8th as on January 1st. Maybe we know that – in fact – every new minute of every new day offers us the same opportunity to Begin Again.

The Importance of Taking Stock of Your Life

Regardless of which of those approaches you identify with more, taking stock of our lives regularly is an important thing to do, and working toward goals can be a fun, rewarding process. However, before we can put any effort into figuring out where we want to go, we must truly understand where we are.

Conducting a Life Audit: Understanding Your Current State

We need to take a close look at our physical, mental, emotional, and social condition: the habits we’ve developed, the beliefs we’ve cultivated and/or clung to, and the friends and acquaintances we’ve surrounded ourselves with. We must ruthlessly audit our lives to determine what’s working and what’s not.

Accepting Reality: A Key Step Toward Change

This audit, however, needs to be done in good faith. This means we can’t gloss over or ignore things we’re not happy about, things about ourselves that make us uncomfortable. It means that, instead of simply rationalizing those things we don’t like and celebrating those we do, we accept whatever we find as our reality right now…in this moment.

Ask Honest Questions to Guide Your Journey

What’s going well, and how can I keep it going well? What’s not going so well, and how can I make it go better? What is confusing, and how can I gain clarity? These are all valuable questions to ask and answer honestly. And, whatever answers we arrive at, we need to accept those answers as how things really are. Then, and only then, can we assign valence (good/bad) to our answers in an effort to inform the last part of what we need to do…take action.

Why Self-Awareness is the Foundation of Goal Setting

After, but not until, we’ve cultivated self-awareness by asking and answering hard questions honestly and accepting the Truth of what we’ve uncovered can we identify desired end states and craft paths toward their achievement. Setting goals without an accurate, thorough understanding of our current state of affairs is a pointless waste of time. We have to know where we are before we can possibly know where we need to go and, certainly, how to get there.

Creating Unique Strategies to Reach Your Goals

It is now possible to identify and pursue physical, mental, emotional, and social actions and strategies to move us from where we are to where we want to be. We can now create plans that are likely to be helpful, have conversations that are likely to be useful, and expend energy that will likely yield productive results. We have to remember, however, that these plans, conversations, and energy expenditure will be unique to us.

The Role of Individuality in Goal Achievement

Imagine you and I were ordered to make our way to the Statue of Liberty as fast as possible. That is, we each have exactly the same goal – get to the Statue of Liberty as soon as we can. Now, imagine what you would need to do to achieve that goal. What are the first steps you would need to take? What are some of the potential challenges you will likely face? What are some things you’ll absolutely need to consider to make the achievement of that goal a reality? However you answered those questions, your answers were different from my own, because the things you and I would need to do to achieve that goal are likely very different.

Learn from Others, But Follow Your Own Path

The point is that although we gain valuable information by hearing others’ success stories and learning how they achieved goals like our own, each of our paths to success will be unique and begins well before the first tangible, concrete attempt to change anything takes place.

The Power of Reflection and Taking Action

So, during this first day of 2025 (and, hopefully, during many days after this), take some time to reflect before jumping straight into whatever resolutions you’ve made or goals you’ve set. Take a good look around and inside yourself, so you know exactly where you’re starting from. Next, sit with that information long enough to ensure you’ve accepted your situation as it really is. Then, and only then, create your unique path. Identify those controllable factors most likely to lead to success and generate a plan to manipulate those factors in productive ways.

Right Now: The Best Time for Transformation

And, in every moment of every day, ask the questions, “What is most important right now? What are the things I can do right now to move myself, even if only a little bit, in the direction I want to go?”

Because Right Now is the only time the needle ever moves. It’s the only time that change is ever possible. It’s the one and only time that we are capable of making any progress whatsoever.

Transformation is Always Within Reach

And, the cool (and very convenient) thing is…Right Now is always present, always accessible, and not dependent in the least on what calendars or clocks say.

So, if January 1st holds some special significance for you, by all means, launch your transformation on that day. Always remember, though, that transformation is available every moment of every day.

No matter what day it is that you’re reading this…transformation is possible, literally and exclusively, Right Now.