“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”—Willie Nelson
New Year, New You. You’ve seen the ads. Ads for the workout programs that will give you an entirely new body to live in, for the face cream that will miraculously erase the years you have earned and been given, for the latest product that will, like, literally change your life. We are constantly asked to change somehow, aren’t we? To be dissatisfied? To transform?
If New Year’s resolutions are your thing, please proceed, and I wish you success and happiness. If it all feels a little forced, or if you have made grand resolutions in the past only to needlessly disappoint yourself like I have, allow me to suggest another point of view for this time of year.
To say I’m not a big believer in resolutions is not to say I don’t think I could improve in many areas of my life. I certainly could. For example, I am not a person who is showing up to the gym with any regularity. I could resolve to do so with all my might every year, and I genuinely want to be strong and healthy, but I’m still not going to do it. At least not for that reason alone. I know I am not the only one, or we would all be athletes.
Also, I have struggled all my adult life with keeping my house the way I’d like it to look and feel. I want to have a tidy and charming home, but I also want to just leave things on whatever surface is nearest to me at the time I decide I’m finished using them. Or wearing them. I’ve scrawled schedules and checklists on paper, typed them in aesthetic fonts and printed them out, and displayed them on dry erase boards in my very best handwriting, but it’s just not enough. If I were alone in this, there wouldn’t be countless social media accounts and magazine articles dedicated to teaching us how to keep our homes looking presentable.
I have an impressive talent for imagining a fictional perfect self and accompanying perfect life without taking a moment to remember that my life is full of love and joy, and perfection doesn’t exist. When I view various tasks and habits through a lens of gratitude, they become easier to execute. Far easier than if I simply declared that I would do such-and-such a thing because of the date on the calendar. Exercise becomes an act of thanks and a celebration of what my body is capable of. Household chores can be an affectionate display of the pride and comfort I enjoy in my home. Should I neglect these tasks for a day, or even a week, I need only to return to gratitude. Shame and failure have no place here, because I have not set unrealistic goals or made lofty promises. I have simply decided to be grateful. Practicing gratitude is a resolution I can keep, and quickly return to when I let it slip away.
There are so many blessings in my life to be counted. My husband, family and wonderful friends, my fulfilling career, colleagues and students, and more—but I do find it especially interesting this time of year to consider gratitude in less obvious ways. Gratitude is, on its face, a mindset and a practice, but it can also be motivation.
“Gratitude” is quite the buzzword lately, and I join you in a collective groan, but it is so much more than surface-level advice. I grew up singing from the Baptist Hymnal, “Count your many blessings, name them one by one.” As a matter of fact, all major world religions include concepts of giving thanks for all that we have, and for our very existence. Gratitude was not introduced to us by celebrities, the self-help industry, or wellness influencers, no matter what anyone would have you believe.
An additional benefit to this practice is that it asks us to be still, to pause and think. To write, pray or meditate. I don’t know about you, but after the hustle and bustle of the holidays, what I crave is a slower pace. Calm and peace. In my mind, this makes gratitude perfectly suited for the winter months. Winter is a time for cozy blankets and comfort food. A season of rest and reflection. Oscar Wilde said “Wisdom comes with winters.” I agree. Science agrees, too. Our brains and bodies need sleep and rest. Downtime is not a luxury, but a necessity. So many of us associate our self-worth with productivity and accomplishment, but did you know that resting after a period of activity and getting enough sleep each night play a vital role in our physical stamina, as well as our learning and memory? For the overachievers out there, rest assured (pun intended) that you need sleep to be your best at whatever you are doing. This January, as the sun sets early in the evening, as the ground and water freeze to stillness, as nature hibernates and waits, we expect ourselves to suddenly take new action. It really is odd that we choose the dead of winter to make a fresh start and implement great change.
In this New Year, I am not thinking much about sweeping resolutions and grand outcomes. Like nature, I am reflecting upon what has been, what will be and what could be. I am considering all that I have to be grateful for, dedicating time to stillness and considering all the ways I feel moved toward positive change. Happy New Year, friends. I wish you contentment, blessings, gratitude and rest.
