2011. That's Mind-boggling!

It is mind-boggling to me that we have reached the year 2011. When I was thirty years old I couldn’t even fathom being alive past the year 2000. That year seemed so far off then. Here it is 2011 and I’m still thriving in a time I thought was way beyond me. How about that?

New Years Day is the time that many of us think about New Year’s resolutions. That makes it a good time for discussion of another one of the values that seem to make a mind-boggling difference in one’s life: Resilience. Resilience, you ask? What does that have to do with New Year’s resolutions?

The answer, for me and for lots of others I have known, is that it is likely we have failed to keep our resolutions from last year. Yes, I have failed on several resolutions and maybe you have also? The value and characteristic of resilience allows us and assists us in bouncing back from our failures to perform the way we wanted to last year. It has been said that the only difference between a successful person and a failure is that the successful person gets up, dusts themselves off and tries again until they are successful. If you give up, you fail.

Regardless of whether we have succeeded or failed on our resolutions from the past year we have all accomplished much. My suggestion is to always start the process of making New Year’s Resolutions by taking an inventory of the things you accomplished in the last year. These may or may not have been resolutions last year but they were accomplishments. This will show you where your energy and strengths lie. These are valuable foundations upon which to build your New Year’s Resolutions for 2011. If we make resolutions consistent with our strengths we are more likely to succeed.

Resilience can be a mind-boggling challenge. The individual ability to be resilient is supported by having an optimistic positive attitude, trust in yourself, faith in the future, embracing change and transition as a new opportunity and knowing and using our strengths.

Resilience is undermined by negative pessimistic attitudes, giving up, anger and lack of self acceptance. These are not helpful.

Now I resolve to sit down, take my own advice and write my New Year’s Resolutions for 2011. 

Stan the Man