As a kid I watched lots of cooking shows. I loved the way the chef assembled all the ingredients from pre-filled bowls and within 2 minutes pulled the cooked dish out from behind the counter. So when my family got a new video camera, I knew right away what kind of video I wanted to produce.
I prepped out cookie ingredients and then prepared baked cookies to put behind the counter. I gave my brothers directions on how to film and what lines I'd say. From years spent absorbing cooking shows, ideas came to me quickly. Rather than the video being someone else's idea and me trying to work hard to follow the steps, it was as if the ideas and abilities had been growing inside me and when the opportunity presented itself, I gave birth to a cooking show. (kid quality, of course!)
I thought of this today as I saw my grocery store announced Resolution Reset Day as January 19th, 2018. They cited that each year 135 million Americans who made New Year's resolutions, by the 2nd week of February, 100 millions of them already failed to make them.
This made me wonder if the reason most people's New Year's resolutions last such a short time is because they come from the wrong source?
Now in the 2nd week of January, I'm sure you've experienced hundreds of messages from advertisers offering new memberships, deals on organizer containers or diet plans that have so much promise. Advertisers work off the premise that we all want thin waists, clear skin, extra cash and clean homes. But since when did they have the 411 on what makes you fulfilled?
Before making the video, my mom didn't sit us kids down and force us to come up with a cooking show, but when the opportunity came, I was inspired to do it. Motivated from within, there was barely anything that could stop me.
If you've been wandering around in the last year, feeling pressure to achieve goals that you felt you should have done a long time ago or maybe you just feel like a failure to your own "weak" will power, maybe it's time to seek out a different approach. Instead of shuffling off with the crowds to sign up for a new membership you won't use, try taking a few, quiet moments to go inside of yourself and see what signs of life are already growing.
What seeds of ideas, creativity, production, or connections have been planted in your very DNA to be birthed to life? What examples, models, or heroes have you been enjoying absorbing because what their doing excites you? Perhaps it's not a matter of making a list of goals to achieve, but rather exploring: How can you support what is wanting to be birthed through you? What blocks need to be taken out of the way so it can be born? You are the best source to find those answers. If you find you need help, I can hold a space for you to help you discover more.