Why Conscious Choices Outshine New Year’s Resolutions
Conscious Choices make all the difference!New Year’s resolutions have long been a tradition, offering a sense of renewal and optimism as one year transitions into the next. Yet, despite their popularity, resolutions often fall short. Let’s observe why.
Have you noticed that by February, most of your New Year’s resolutions have been abandoned?
While the intentions behind such certain date-based self-made promises are commendable, their impact pales compared to the transformative power of making conscious choices throughout the year.
Conscious living is the practice of being fully present, grounded in your body and intentional in your decisions.
Conscious choices and knowing how to keep your focus offer a far more sustainable path to personal growth and resilience.
The Power of Presence and Conscious Choices
Being fully present in your body and noticing what happens around you allows conscious choices. When you live fully in the present moment, you cultivate a deeper awareness of your thoughts, imaginations and emotions.
Awareness creates distance between you and your thoughts, imaginations, emotions and physical body as you are none of those levels. Your thoughts, imaginations, emotions and physical body are your tools.
Becoming more conscious and using self-observation empowers you to respond to life’s challenges with clarity rather than reacting subconsciously. You are not your automatic inner reactions; all your reactions are learned in and often without a filter of consciousness and sensing what is best for you and your body.
Most of what we are exposed to as we grow up consists of different subconscious patterns ingrained in the people and environments around us. Few individuals take the time to question their habitual behaviors or instincts, often accepting them as the norm without reflection.
The lack of self-awareness can perpetuate cycles of unhelpful habits and limit personal freedom to make conscious choices.
In that sense, you need to cultivate curiosity and encourage introspection so that you can break free from these subconscious influences.
Learning to examine and challenge our own subconscious patterns opens the door to greater self-awareness, conscious decision-making, and personal transformation. It’s through this process that we can truly grow and create more intentional lives.
Life is not about striving for perfection but about fostering self-awareness that enables consistent, meaningful action and conscious and fully acknowledged experiences. The conscious experience of life is the point!
Our New Year’s resolutions are future-focused aspirations and promises, tied to an arbitrary date and caused by the subconscious longing for something.
Our desires often overlook the importance of fully present self-reflection and removing the negative that keeps us stuck. More than adding positivity, we need to remove the negative inner reactions that keep us stuck and afraid.
Continuous Focus vs Date-Based Promises
Certain date-based promises, like New Year’s resolutions, are less important than continuous focus.
Correct focus is a relaxed way of keeping your destination or goal in mind. Focus is direction. You don’t need to add emotional tension to it. Conscious focus is relaxed focus.
Resolutions often carry an all-or-nothing mentality. Miss a workout or indulge in an extra dessert, and it’s easy to feel like you’ve failed. Adapting isn’t failing, giving up and forgetting to return to what you were focused on is failing.
All rigidity tends to discourage you from continuing your efforts. In contrast, a mindset grounded in continuous relaxed focus permits flexibility and adapting. Conscious focus acknowledges that progress is rarely linear and that setbacks are a natural part of growth. All failure allows learning.
By prioritizing ongoing intentionality, you shift your perspective from one-time goals to conscious decision-making. For example, instead of resolving to "lose 10 pounds," a more conscious approach might involve committing to nourishing your body with only healthy foods and keeping your body fit through pleasant physical activity.
You know what you love, don’t follow others blindly, if you love nature walks use those instead of jogging or going to the gym. Just take longer and more challenging walks as you feel more and more fit. Such a subtle shift turns a finite goal into a sustainable lifestyle change.
Also, remember to train your mind. A relaxed mind where thoughts are not on autopilot and emotions are led by your will secures inner calmness to keep going. All meaningful achievements take time.
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The Role of Radical Transparency
Radical transparency is honesty towards yourself and others.
Honesty will get you further than emotional motivation and mental concepts. When you’re radically transparent with yourself and others, you strip away excuses, denial, and avoidance.
The level of (self-)honesty allows you to see your patterns, strengths and areas for improvement with clarity. It also helps you set intentions that align with your values and meaningful professional goals rather than superficial goals.
For instance, a resolution to "become rich" isn’t measurable and reachable as it is too abstract, whereas a conscious intention to "build stable financial income flow to support my family and invest 10% of it no matter what happens" allows change in the long run. So, a conscious choice would be here to invest and learn more about successful investment strategies and profitable asset classes.
When you start embracing radical transparency, you can identify the “why” behind your actions and also seek what you can do to have a solution to ensure that your choices reflect what truly matters to you.
Conscious action is not all at once but a step-by-step long-term sustainable path to achieve what truly matters. When it comes to investments, understanding what you’re investing in and grasping the concept of compound interest can make a significant difference.
Understanding is the most undervalued power and informed decisions and knowledge which when turned into skills often lead to better outcomes. By thoroughly researching your investment options and recognizing how compound interest works over time, you can maximize returns and build long-term wealth.
Even small, consistent investments can grow substantially when compounded effectively. This principle not only applies to financial investments but also to time and effort; what you consistently invest in today can yield exponential rewards in the future.
Transparency also fosters accountability and taking personal responsibility.
Only when you’re honest about your progress and challenges, you’re more likely to stay committed to your goals. This approach stands in stark contrast to the fleeting emotional motivation often associated with New Year’s resolutions, which always wanes once the initial excitement fades and daily routine kicks in.
The Pitfalls of Emotional Motivation
Emotional motivation can be a short-term catalyst for change, but in the long run, it’s often unreliable. All emotions rise, peak and fade. All of them, that is the law of nature which states that all energy changes. So, making a bet on something that fades, like emotion, is bound to lead to failure.
Resolutions made in the heat of the moment may lack the clear path forward and focused intentionality needed for long-term success.
Conscious choices, however, are rooted in practicality and self-awareness. Such choices have a clear focus. They recognize that inwardly sustainable self-discipline and resilience and not fleeting emotions are the cornerstones of lasting transformation.
So, focus on figuring out the process and learning the needed intrapersonal and professional skills rather than just fixing an abstract outcome. For this, you truly need to understand the practical hierarchy of your inner domain, what part within you is for self-leadership and what parts in your mind are the ones you can lead.
Your awareness and intrapersonal skills come here in handy as those are the actual self-leadership tools that are with you 24/7.
All conscious choices become visible in the background of inner silence.
7 Practical Steps for Conscious Living
If you’re ready to move beyond the limitations of New Year’s resolutions, consider these efficient strategies for embracing practical steps for conscious living:
- Become more conscious and aware of the whereabouts of your awareness: In the morning read your goals and end each day with a moment of reflection and noticing the tiny progress made. Conscious self-observation and honest noticing of progress and setbacks should be seen as an opportunity to adjust consciously your long-term intentions and daily priorities.
- Set clear intentions and take personal responsibility: Instead of setting rigid or vague goals, focus on conscious intentions that reflect your values and then take personal responsibility to keep going even when setbacks appear or the ride gets challenging. For example, rather than resolving to "go to the gym five times a week," commit to prioritizing your physical health in ways that is sustainable and allow meaningful changes. For example, plan a time to go to bed, figure out your minimal and optimal amount of sleep, figure out healthy food choices for your body type, set healthier activity patterns (take a bicycle to work instead of using your car) and remember to train your mind regularly.
- Practice self-compassion: Become aware that facing challenges sometimes means setbacks and solving those with a calm mind is part of the journey. Treat yourself with kindness and use all challenges as opportunities to learn and grow.
- Be honest with yourself and others: Embrace radical transparency by regularly assessing your progress and motivations; if needed adjust your path, and do not give up on your long-term vision or goals. Be flexible and learn how to adjust and adapt. Keep your actions aligned with your own core values and trust yourself in the process. Always dare to be honest in your communication, admit what you didn’t know or could not be aware of as risks and then adjust your course by what you learned intentionally. All skills are personal and take time to learn, so be patient and keep going. Noticing what you need to learn is part of being honest!
- Learn how to keep your focus: Keeping your focus and using self-observation are practical intrapersonal skills allow you to get things done. When you force your focus with emotional will you will meet a lot of pressure. Knowing how to focus matters. All intrapersonal skills matter and the best approach is to get a proper intrapersonal education. Only when you lead all processes within you with ease can you prevent stress, burnout, depression and anxiety. The bigger your vision or goal, the healthier your mind needs to be to achieve it! For example, as entrepreneurs, we often invest with a five- or ten-year horizon and meet huge setbacks along the way, but when your mind is calm and your focus clear, you keep going and solving challenges.
- Take time off: Remember to keep silent time and relax your mind and body. The bigger your goal, the more rest you need. Restlessness and tension drive you ill, a relaxed mind and healthy lifestyle choices keep you well. It matters that you know how to be well fit for for work and personal life 24/7.
- Love yourself: You are your best friend and your mind and body are your tools. Notice the value of your body and mind. Love them and love yourself then you can also love your work and family and what truly matters to you!
The Long-Term Benefits of Conscious Choices
When you prioritize conscious choices or responding over subconscious inner reactivity, you create a foundation for sustainable growth. Resolutions are like advertising, a short lived trial to influence your subconscious mind. Resolutions only work in the short run.
Without involving consciousness, it is hard to remain on a personally sustainable and healthy path.
The approach outlined in this blog post fosters resilience by encouraging adaptability and self-awareness. It shifts the focus from seeking perfection to conscious leading of the progress, allowing you to notice small wins along the way.
A conscious way of living enhances your mental wellness by reducing the pressure to meet arbitrary expectations.
Imagine a life where each day presents an opportunity to make choices that align with your values and goals. How would it make you feel?
Learning intrapersonal skills and using awareness transforms your personal growth from a once-a-year short-lived effort into a continuous conscious journey – into a life worth experiencing. Make a conscious commitment to learn intrapersonal skills that allow you to become fully present, transparent and intentional in all that you do.
Final Thoughts
New Year’s resolutions may offer a sense of hope and direction, but they’re no match for the power of conscious living.
By being fully present, embracing continuous focus and practicing radical transparency, you unlock the potential for authentic, lasting inner and outer transformation. Instead of relying on emotional motivation, suffering from continuous inner subconscious reactivity and arbitrary deadlines, commit to making conscious choices that reflect your values every day of the year.
The journey to a more resilient, fulfilling life doesn’t start on January 1st. It starts and continues any day you make a conscious choice to live with purpose and presence.
This blog post is written and photos shared by Kaur Lass