Knowing who we are-divine; powerful; valuable; worthy-is a prerequisite to a healthy sense of self-worth. A healthy sense of self-worth is the premise of everything we do. it determines how we treat ourselves and how we treat others. it determines how we allow others to treat us. It determines what we think we deserve, what kind of career we choose, what kind of goals we set, and whether we think we can achieve those goals. May you always remember who you are!
How are you starting off our week? I hope you will start it off by being good to yourself and luv’ing yourself. I hope you will tell yourself good things about yourself and remind yourself that you are all that you are created to be. With all that we have going on around us, it may be easy to lose sight of that. Don’t.
I’m sure you have seen them already. Friends’ social media posts about New Year’s resolutions and how 2021 is going to be their best year ever. You probably are thinking about your own resolutions and what you want the new year to look like for you.
If you’re like many of us you have made resolutions in the past that have not been fulfilled. After all, it is believed that 80% of people fail to achieve their new year’s resolutions. There are many articles about why we fail to fulfill new year’s resolutions and I myself have written about this in the past. So, if you want to be a part of the 20% of people who actually fulfill their new year’s resolutions, here are four questions to ask yourself before you make your resolutions for the new year. Being honest with yourself and really thinking about these questions just might get you on the path to fulfilling your resolutions so that you can truly have the best year of your life.
Why have my resolutions failed in the past?
Being honest with yourself and digging deep to find out why previous resolutions went unfilled is one of the best ways to ensure you fulfill future resolutions. There are many reasons we fail to fulfill resolutions and sometimes it’s because we didn’t change the behavior or our thinking. Fulfilling resolutions requires making changes within ourselves. If we take the same thinking and behavior into the new year, we can be sure that whatever we resolve to do will turn out the same way as in the past.
2. How did I decide on the resolutions I made?
There are many reasons why we make the resolutions that we make. Asking ourselves how we decided to make those resolutions and understanding their source can go a long way in helping us fulfill future resolutions. Ask yourself did you have a healthy sense of self-worth when you made previous resolutions or were you operating from a place of low self-worth? Were your resolutions rooted in fear? For example, if you have experienced financial challenges and you feared not having enough money in the future and you made a resolution to save more money, if you have not dealt with the thinking and behaviors that caused you not to save in the past (maybe you’re an emotional spender or you haven’t set a budget) you are bound to repeat the behaviors that prevented you from saving in the first place and your resolution to save more money will go unfulfilled
3. What did I change about myself to help me fulfill my resolutions?
2020 presented us with many opportunities for personal growth and development and to make changes within ourselves. 2020 challenged us to think about how we treat ourselves and the people around us. It presented us with opportunities to evaluate how we live our lives,
4. What process can I put in place to support myself and keep me on track to fulfill my resolution(s)?
Having a process or “system” in place to support yourself and help you work through challenges is one of the best ways to ensure your resolutions get fulfilled. I write about it here. Having such a process in place not only helps you work through issues and builds you up, but it can also help you stay motivated and on track to fulfill your goals. Whether it’s a Spiritual practice that consists of meditation, crystals, prayer or it’s something else like daily desserts and positive self-talk, having a practice in place that you rely on when you are feeling doubt and/or fear that threatens to derail your resolutions can help get you back on track.
There you have it. Four questions to ask yourself before you make your new year’s resolutions. Asking these questions of yourself and answering them honestly may be just what you need to make resolutions that you will be able to fulfill. Whatever resolution(s) you decide to make, remember to give yourself some grace and some space and understand that life is going to happen as it always does. Know that this doesn’t have to throw you off track to achieving all that you resolve to achieve. So go ahead, make your resolutions, and look forward to having one of the best years of your life.
How did you come to be who you are? Did you choose the person you are, or did someone else-society, religion, or your parents-tell you who to be?
Recently I served as a panelist as part of a discussion on black women, stereotypes, and the #MeToo movement. The discussion centered on the stereotypes associated with black women and how those stereotypes helped perpetuate sexual violence against black women, and how those stories are or are not being told in this time of #MeToo.
During the discussion, the topic of black womanhood came up, specifically what it means to be a black woman. My response was that, as women, we came into our womanhood in a patriarchal society and that our womanhood has been defined by others. Men. A society that is male-centered and male-dominated has decided what the standards for being a woman are, and women themselves have perpetuated this standard. Men have decided the standards for what a woman should be, how she should dress, how she should speak, how she should behave, wear her hair, who she should date, and most importantly, her sexuality. And all of it is based on the needs, wants, and desires of males.
Question for you: Did you, as a woman, have a say in setting the standard for who you are as a woman, or did you fall in line with what was dictated to you? Do you sit quietly when you really have the desire to roar because you have been told that a lady is not loud? Do you stand by when you see an injustice being committed against others when the warrior spirit in you really wants to fight against that injustice? Do you forgo the short miniskirt that set your heart ablaze when you first saw it, or do you choose the more “appropriate” longer skirt because society says that only whores wear dresses that short?
My point is to inspire you to think about how you became who you are. If you are not being the woman you really want to be then I encourage you to courageously explore who you really are, what it is that you really like and what womanhood means for you and start on the path to becoming that woman. Know that you are supported every step of the way by the Divine. After all, it is the Divine who created you.
Where do you get your personal power from? Is it from an external source like your career, the car you drive, the house you live in, or the number of educational degrees you have on your wall? Is it from the number of followers you have on social media or the number of “likes” your posts elicit? Do you feel powerful when you delete someone from your friends list on social media outlets? Does it make you feel powerful to cause another person pain or heartache, to possess something that no one else has? To be able to say, “I told you so?” Does it make you feel powerful to impede the progress of others? To stand in the way of their success?
You may be surprised at the sources of some people’s personal power. You might be surprised at the source of your own! We all want to feel powerful to feel significant. But power that comes from external sources is fleeting. True personal power comes from within and is developed when one comes to realize who they are; it does not come from external sources. Understanding that your power source is internal and is based on your Divine nature and not on your personal possessions or any external sources is power in itself. Once you realize your true personal power, nothing is beyond your reach.
“Today, I want you to become aware that you already possess all the inner wisdom, strength, and creativity needed to make your dreams come true. This is hard for most of us to realize because the source of this unlimited personal power is buried so deeply beneath the bills, the car pool, the deadlines, the business trip, and the dirty laundry that we have difficulty accessing it in our daily lives. When we can’t access our inner resources, we come to the flawed conclusion that happiness and fulfillment come only from external events. That’s because external events usually bring with them some sort of change. And so, we’ve learned to rely on circumstances outside ourselves for forward or backward momentum as we hurtle through. But we don’t have to do that any longer. We can learn to be the catalysts for our own change.” ~Sarah Ban Breathnach
Eat My Dessert First 