New Years Resolution

NEW YEARS RESOLUTION

                 Every December 31st, a lot of us are either getting ready for the numerous amounts of New Year's Eve parties happening in and around the city in which we reside. I am from the magnificent city of Toronto in Ontario in Canada, and normally I would be joining in the festivities, but because of school commitments I took the night off. I'd also like to make a few posts here and on other sites before I call it a night.

             The first thing on the docket is of course, New Years Resolutions. A lot of us have them, and unfortunately a lot of us failed to accomplished the resolutions we set out for ourselves last year. In a similar manner, a great many of us will fail to accomplish the goals we create for ourselves this year. This is called the self-fulfilling prophecy. We make all these goals, we let time pass us by without acting on them, and as we get closer to a new year, we reschedule them as goals for the following year. So, why does this happen and what can we do to change this? 

           This happens for a variety of reasons, but for the most part it happens because of something called detachment. We make these goals and downgrade if not forget entirely, its significance to our lives. In other words, we allow not accomplishing the goal value more to us, over, say, sticking to our goals. This is normal as well. It is completely normal to create a goal and not follow through with it. Circumstances change that we could have never predicted, and this prohibited us from committing to a goal. We could have even reassessed the value of the goal to our lives, and later realized committing to such a goal is not as important or urgent as we had previously thought. Whatever the reason may be, detachment of ourselves from our goals is the main reason we do not follow through on our resolutions. How do we fix this? Easier said than done. If you're up for the challenge, the best way to fix this is to personalize your goals. This means make your goals and your identity one in the same. For example, if your goal is to quit smoking, rather than viewing yourself as a smoker, instead of picturing yourself as someone who is going to smoke a cigarette, picture yourself as a non-smoker and someone who does not smoke tomorrow. Make your goals as personal as brushing your teeth. It's not going to be easy, but if you think it is, trust me, it will be easy. Of course, you may have a cigarette every once in a while as a reward for coming so far, but only as a reward, do not view smoking as your addiction or a dependency. 

             Often times, we do not fulfill our goals because we forget. Knowing this, I want you to understand that it is very important to write your goals down. Go do it now. Right now. Write your goals down. Put it somewhere you access pretty often, so you can be remind of the direction in where you want to take your life. 

              Other times, we simply make goals for ourselves that are far too hard to accomplish. We might make our goal something like: "I want a million dollars by 2016". The problem with this sort of thinking is, it is impossible to accomplish this unless you win the lottery, or you're able to build a million dollar business in a year's time. Making goals you cannot achieve is disastrous because when you cannot accomplish them, you start to put yourself down and your self-esteem can suffer as a result. It is important to make your goals realistic. Instead of a goal like the aforementioned, you might say "This year, I'm going to do XYZ so that I become closer to achieving that million dollars I've always wanted". 

               This leads me to my final note, make your goals build on goals or who you were as a person last year. So for example, if last year you wanted to improve your sense of fashion, reflect on what you did well and what's still missing from you accomplishing that goal in its entirety. Your goal this year should be to build on that and bring yourself closer and closer to the perfect version of yourself. 

                That being said, it's officially 2016. HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE. I hope this year is prosperous, exciting and brings you everything you're after. 

Love, 

Minoshann

Letting Go of the Past

                                                          Letting Go of the Past

                One of my dreams is to write a book about this subject, as this is something I have struggled with for the better part of my life. For the mistakes I have made in this past, I have consistently and severely punished myself mentally, which has led me down a path of depression, guilt, and self-doubt. 

               But I soon learned that everybody makes mistakes, and punishing oneself for the mistakes that normal people make (Yes! it is normal to make mistakes), ensures that the past sticks with you indefinitely. For as long as we punish ourselves in our heads for what we have done, the harder it becomes to move on from it; the more our past will haunt us, denying us our right to live free and happy lives. All life is precious, and no matter what we have done to ourselves and to others, we deserve to be happy. Some of us will want to seek forgiveness from those we have wronged, and this is good. If it is in your power to seek forgiveness, then it is probably something you should do. In fact, I highly recommend it, as forgiveness helps us move on. 

              You should also however, be aware that the strongest form of forgiveness does not come from external sources, but from yourself. We need to be the ones who forgive ourselves. Forgiving ourselves is the first and most important part of our path to exorcising our past demons. Whenever we feel guilt creep in for our past mistakes, we must remind ourselves that we forgive ourselves. That everybody makes mistakes, and that we need to make mistakes in order to learn from them. 

          The fundamental keys to letting go of the past are accepting that we are not perfect and that we are human when we make mistakes; that we cannot be hard on ourselves for making mistakes, and forgiving ourselves for our past mistakes so that we can use our present focus on ways to avoid making the same mistake, so that our future is bright and full of life not pain and regret. 

Likeability?

         Someone once asked me: How do I make friends? How do I get people to want to hang out with me? 

       I told him that I did not know the correct answer, but I asked him to ask himself this very question: Am I the kind of Person people would want to introduce to their friends or want to hang out with? 

The Importance of Forgiveness

                                The Importance of Forgiveness

        Every single one of us has done something bad in our lives. It's understandable, and in fact, it is actually what makes each and every single one of us, human. Humans make mistakes, and for as long as mankind as an existence has been recorded, humans have done some awful things; both to each other and to ourselves. 

       But what most of us do not do is forgive ourselves for what we have done to each other and ourselves. We dwell on it for the better part of our days. We punish ourselves in our heads by calling ourselves names, by considering ourselves bad people, for being ashamed of what we did thinking that if people knew what we did they would never forgive us. We think of this as normal and sane, and that by doing this, we provide ourselves therapy and the punishment we deserve. In fact, the opposite is true. By doing this, we are destroying ourselves bit by bit. We are destroying our sense of self-worth, our self-esteem, and our self-respect. This happens because we define ourselves in relation to our mistakes and faults, rather than our capacity to forgive and to grow and become better. 

      We are not our mistakes. Everyone makes them. The more we learn to accept ourselves for our actions, to apologize to ourselves and those we have wronged, the more we can learn from our mistakes and grow to be the best we possibly can be. The past is the past, we cannot change it, but we certainly can learn from it. 

       Forgive yourself for whatever bad you have done in your life. You're only human. We understand. Nobody is perfect. Don't feel guilt, don't be angry with yourself and start living your life with no regrets. Start living your life for all the possibilities for growth that it will provide you.