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Shellie Berman Grafstein

Why New Year’s Resolutions Are So Important

Photo from unsplash.com by timmossholder
Photo from unsplash.com by timmossholder

Tony Robbins says “We overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a year”.

Almost everyone writes New Year’s resolutions, even though most people don’t manage to do what’s on their list, it is such an important exercise because it makes us aware of what’s important to us.

Most people have health and wellness on their list, along with improving or creating meaningful relationships with family and friends.  Many of us have a goal of deepening our relationship with our creator, giving back to our community, becoming better people.

These are all great things.

To help make our resolutions come true, it is super helpful to put a doable and concrete goal beside each one.

For example, instead of ‘get healthier’, maybe it can be to lose 2 inches off my waist or add a vegetable to lunch 5x a week.  Instead of ‘giving back to the community’, it can be to volunteer one hour a month, collect 10 pieces of garbage from the park each day, etc.  This way you can quantify it and be able to check it off month after month.

Even if you don’t reach your goal, you have been taking actual steps to get there.

Think about how great it will feel when you look back at 2024 and see how you can accomplish so many things in areas that are important to you by showing up consistently.

I have repeatedly seen with both myself and my clients how empowering it is to be true to ourselves.  Without having clear goals, we get caught up in what is important to social media influencers and lose sight that those things are meaningless to us.  General society really focuses on external things – how we look, what we wear, how we furnish our living spaces.  We know that real meaning and purpose come from changing what is within.

Now that I am in my mid-60s, I see how important it is to live a life true to our values and purpose.  I remember going to the cemetery to visit my relatives, and I saw a tombstone covered with golf balls.  I had never seen that before and I went over to read what was engraved. I don’t remember the exact words but in essence, it read that So and So loved golf and he never missed playing a game every chance he could.  When I read it I cried. That poor Mr. So and So lived such an empty life that his family couldn’t even make something meaningful up to write on his tomb.

Why is what is written on our tombstone important – because we should be looking at the end goal – what is the legacy we want to leave behind?  By writing our goals for the New Year (or Rosh Hashana or for both) it ensures that we are creating, action by action, year by year that legacy.

Happy 2024.  Remember we can’t control world events, but we can control our thoughts and actions.

About the Author
Shellie Berman Grafstein is a life coach for women over 50, helping them to live fit and fabulous lives. She is a mother of 5, grandmother of 2, and a pet owner of 2 dogs and a cat. She is originally from Toronto and now lives in Beit Shemesh. She is passionate about improving women's health - mental and physical so that we can live long, happy, and fulfilling lives.