Humans seem to be drawn , over time , to many things across the globe, including the motivation to call back the light from the darkness, and to somehow delineate time.
I'm certain this came about in many places and ways before our first recorded history, 4,000 years ago, the Babylonians.
For them, 'the first new moon following the vernal equinox—the day in late March with an equal amount of sunlight and darkness—heralded the start of a new year.'
I certainly have always been an evaluator , and a delineator, because that was an inspiring way of knowing I was focused and getting somewhere , slowly and gradually . Not for everyone, but for me, it has served me well.
Many of us write how the year has been. , looking back on what we learned and managed to grow , and what might be goals for the coming year.
When we 're younger, we avidly set forth ridiculously complex goals , feeling excited just in the overreaching. But with time , we hone our capacity for the realistic and the manageable and the measurable .
We come to realize that if we bite off more than we can chew, we just end up feeling frustrated and let down .
But if we are more pragmatic, we can actually make some headway.
Kevin has a Crossfit Diet Challenge he's been mulling over. At groups like Crossfit, there's this extraordinary peer support. If you want to participate , you choose something realistic and manageable , get a point a day, lose two points for missing a day , and do it all together for a month. Kinda cool.
It's time limited , you get to see how it is to stretch and do something new , you have a herd to do it with for momentum and support, and after ,you get to see how you did.
Think of ALL those times we stretch. Because we have to , or because we choose to . How insurmountable Mt. Washington always looked at the beginning . My mind would chatter ON about how it really wasn't possible. , to climb that monster in a day. And certainly not me.
But my mind was not telling it true . So much is possible. . It's just all about the teeny tiny bite.
And then , there's the telling. Right? Do we tell? Or not tell?
Which one is most helpful for our purposes?
Sometimes it's more supportive to quietly set a goal and put up notes on walls or rounders on our phone, and do the inch-by-inch deal. Other times , it's helpful to tell others , as a way of holding ourselves to it. Often we benefit from getting an inner sense of what we 're actually up for. Often , no matter the dire or the necessary , we are overburdened and will not be able to pull that off.
Other times , the very same dire and necessary will catapult us into a new place. Getting that internal sense of our readiness and inner resources can help us estimate.
And success setting a simple realistic goal carries with it tidings of something even more important. A good feeling of confidence that yeah, we pulled that off . And so, just like standing at the top of the mountain, we begin to realize that , with wise planning, so much is possible.
Years ago , I was a manager of a residential program for people with psychiatric challenges. I noticed what we often do, and what is taught in behavioral psych, which is that , when you begin with what a person really cares about, and work backward realistically from the present , often you can help them construct a plan that comes from them and touches them and matters to them. When you build in celebrating each victory, the momentum builds.
Same deal for teaching little kids . Small goals , celebrating victories . Looking back and reflecting upon how able a person is .
I do that quietly with myself , all the time. It helps . So that , as we grow older, as some things we can attend to but others we can't , it feels more possible to grudgingly accept that which we are currently unable to change , when we are in fact moving forward with other things . And the changing our brain function by intentionally taking the time to celebrate it . The tiny improvements of the day or week. The celebratory things we might do that need little money or grand gestures.
My own goal? To eat meals on time ( by 9,1,7) and be in bed by 10.
For a month . While he does his w his posse.
Here is to all of our new beginnings.
Art by Tasha Tudor
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