Your New Year Resolution: TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH
A leap of faith is the best New Year resolution for you.
This year honour yourself with a resolution that is sensible, ambitious and achievable.
Taking a leap of faith requires no actual time or money. It is literally a resolution of belief in something: FAITH. It is elemental in pursuing excellence, success or goals on any level.
Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
– Rabindranath Tagore
What is a leap of faith if not a beginning into the unknown.
As January unfolds so does a brand new year. We learn to celebrate the last day of each year since ‘we made it through’, some of us with flying colours (What does that even mean? The idiom comes from nautical terminology and refers to times when ships would return home to safety with their flags flying in the wind). By that token, January 1st presents us the great uncharted territory of this new year. Undeniably, we all set sail on the seas of a new year together.
Time is the great equalizer. None of us can set sail on a new day before anyone else.
Want a New Year Resolution that really makes sense? (but does not lean on facts) : Take a leap of faith. I’ll tell you why. Hundreds of programs teach you how to improve your life and this month they are marketing to you, with glitz, glamour, discounts, value ads and all kinds of promises.
“Come get this, buy this, enjoy this, get better with this”.
And on and on it goes. Then, how do you choose which program, latest diet or nutritional supplement will help you get healthy or sleep better?
What podcast teaches you the fastest, where do you need to focus your energy?
pausing to breathe in life on top of Bear Wallow Mountain.
Toulie and The Healing Muse, lead by example.
Who knows the way?
- you must allow time for the view to clear
- you must make space for new paths on your life journey
- you must invite the way to come to you
When our New Year resolution revolves around a healthy new habit, most of us fail. We fail to follow through on new actions, well because they are new. Often, we fail to reach our goal. Let’s be honest, that’s not a good way to start this year.
Faith is here to save the day (err, year).
When we have faith, we choose to believe we can do something. Action is the key to success. With faith, we also have the strength to believe we can be someone different today than we were yesterday. That is a crucial step in achieving our goal, any goal. In a 2009 JSTOR journal article on Faith and Goodness (by J.E.R. Staddon, Duke University) “Science…cannot tell us what to value[JS & MH may not agree], just how to get it”. In other words, our faith and belief system dictates what we value and the facts around us, the programs, the workshops, the myriad of ‘get better’ options just show us how.
If you don’t believe you can do it…’just do it’ doesn’t usually work.
Without faith in your life, you may feel lost at sea when help isn’t close at hand. To step confidently into this new year, practice faith daily.
How to practice building your faith?
Follow these three steps, action steps.
- Clearly write out your belief. ‘I believe I can walk more than 10000 steps a day. I have faith in me’
- Set aside 2x a day, everyday when you sit and remind yourself of your faith. Draw on your belief in spiritual origins, your religion, your culture or nature. This is usually in the form of a journal, prayer and/or meditation.
- Allow your connection to your spiritual community, religious group or tribe to support you daily, weekly, monthly in meetings and events. Growing your community grows your faith.
taking time to sit with your steps and journalling is worth a thousand and one words.
Need a helping hand with your leap of faith – Connect with me for in an online Life Guidance session
Note that faith AND action are needed to pursue a target or a goal.
Set your resolution to be: I believe in faith religiously. FAITH and RELIGIOUSLY I pair together to get your attention. Faith is not religion and religion is not faith. They complement each other. To adopt an action religiously means ‘in a regular manner’, choosing this new habit regularly, regardless of feeling, inspiration or motivation. We choose it because we believe we must. That is the fundamental pillar of any goal oriented program.
Whether we have Faith in a particular religion or in nature, or even in science does not matter. What matters is that we cultivate Faith. Just like cultivating compassion helps it grow, nourishing and choosing our faith regularly strengthens it.
With faith in our hearts, or by our side (wherever we choose to keep it) we can excel. Faith is the compass direction for our next step. Before you take on yet another New Year Resolution, I ask you: what do you believe? Do you believe in yourself? How will you define your faith today?
In that answer you will find your ideal first step toward your goal. Cultivate faith today and every day this month and you can guarantee yourself a successful beginning in the year 2024.
Faith is building on what you know is here so you can reach what you know is there. – Cullen Hightower
faith image source: uua.org/re/tapestry/children/windows/session3
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Monthly natural health and wellness column written for South Etobicoke News.
Would you like a natural health focus in your next newsletter, workshop or marketing news? Email me for collaborations, projects, articles.
