Here we go again. A new year has begun, and if you are like many others, you look at the beginning of a new year as the perfect impulse to set new year’s resolutions. So January 1st comes around, you enthusiastically set new year’s resolutions, follow through for a few days, and then, usually sooner than later, the commitment is gone, the resolution is broken, until January 1st comes around again. Then you start over again and repeat the whole procedure. Does that somehow sound familiar to you? 

Why is it that we set new year’s resolutions in the first place? At the end of the day, a new year’s resolution is a resolution to improve ourselves.

Why do we want to improve ourselves? We want to improve ourselves because we are on a journey of evolving and perfecting our consciousness.

So from the perspective of evolution, our goal really is the perfection of consciousness, however, even though we may not be consciously aware of our evolutionary goal, the forces of evolution are pushing us towards perfecting our consciousness, and a new year’s resolution is nothing but a conscious or unconscious response to this inner urge to keep advancing, to step into mastery, become Soul conscious and awaken to our Divinity.

What is a new year’s resolution to lose weight or get physically fit, for example, but an attempt of the consciousness dwelling inside the body to master the body. If you can‘t live two days without eating sweets, then you, the consciousness dwelling inside the body, are not in charge of your life. Your body masters you. So if you say, this year I will get fit like a yogi, you are saying that you are determined to master your body. You are saying that you, the consciousness, are determined to master the matter aspect. Man’s constitution is threefold: Spirit-Matter-Consciousness. The Spirit and matter aspects constitute the so-called “forces of evolution” that push the consciousness on towards perfection. The body, the matter aspect, is not just a dress for the Soul, it is much more than that.

We set new year’s resolutions because – knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously – we understand that we are on a journey of evolving, mastering and perfecting our consciousness, and a new year’s resolution is simply an initiative to make that happen, whether we realize it or not.

Now, the question is, once we decide to take the initiative to improve ourselves in some way, how can we make sure we follow through? Specifically, for our purposes here, how can we make sure that we keep our new year’s resolutions and follow through?

Here is what I do: I do not only have new year’s resolutions, I also have new month’s resolutions, and new week’s resolutions. Said another way: I treat every first day of the month as if it were January 1st. So I treat every February 1st, every March 1st, every April 1st etc. as if it were January 1st. And I treat every Monday throughout the year as if it were January 1st. So I don’t just see January 1st, but every first day of the month and every first day of the week, throughout the year, as an impulse to set a new resolution.