By Claire Reynolds
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” Lao Tzu
You may have noticed that New Year’s reso-lutions are often talked about with an air of disillusionment as the month of January pro-gresses. As I drove home today I heard a radio presenter warning that “most people make a list of goals for 2023, but by February they have forgotten them all”. If you are experienc-ing this disillusionment yourself, before throwing out your hopes completely, why not ask yourself why our lists of aspirations often come to nothing? Why is it that we can be so full of hope and motivation in December, and then by the end of January, somehow our de-sire for change seems to have melted away, leaving us with only the guilt of not having seen our hopes become a reality? If our reso-lution is something that we really do care about, for example ‘spending more quality time with my children’, then why is it that we can’t seem to make this happen? There are a number of important factors at play here, and I think the most significant of all is that we start by trying to take giant leaps before we can simply walk: we forget to start small. Our aspiration may be spot on, our enthusiasm high, our motivation authentic, but we have not identified that very first unseen, small, and yet absolutely critical first step. It seems so simple, and yet so few of us do it. And without taking a series of seemingly less im-portant small steps, we undermine our efforts by aiming for something that is impossible to achieve instantly, and does not have the foun-dations to be long-lasting. If there is some-thing important bubbling under the surface that you want to change or achieve this year, I encourage you not to let it go, but to hold onto it proudly as you walk into 2023. Then be gentle with yourself and ask, “what is the very first, small step that I need to take in order to make this happen?” If you share the example of spending more quality time with your chil-dren this year, then that small step may be spending twenty minutes over a coffee decid-ing exactly how much quality time you would like to have with your kids and how regularly. Or it may be spending a few moments with a pen and paper identifying, honestly, what it is that is stopping you spending more quality time with them at the moment. Perhaps you will decide that the very first step is to acknowledge that you are going to need the help of a trusted friend, and so you decide to pick up the phone and share your hopes for the coming year, and ask them to check in with you from time to time to ask how it’s going. If you spend a moment to think honest-ly, you will know what that very first small step is, and as you continue taking small, thought-through steps, you will find yourself walking steadily towards the goal that is so important to you. What is your new year’s resolution for 2023? As Lao Tzu said so well, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.
Claire Reynolds is a therapeutic integra-tive counsellor and coach based in Shepperton, and she is passionate about seeing people live their lives in full colour. To find out more visit www.clairereynolds.co.uk