There’s a crisp excitement in the air at the start of a new year. Maybe it’s our learned way of grieving the close of the holiday season; we box up our ornaments and lights, place the ugly sweaters back in the dark corner of the guest bedroom, and often feel as if we’ve lost a little magic.
So to cope, we make resolutions. We open up a brand-new journal, or download an app to track our progress, or type out a long Facebook post to fervently proclaim the large mountain we are setting out to climb in 2021. This is my year, we say. This is when it happens, we think. And in our deepest core, in the places we don’t let others see, we often whisper, I’ll finally be who I am supposed to be.
But what if we did not have to fulfill this deep insecurity that we aren’t all we need to be?
There is a great body of research which suggests that self-efficacy, or the confidence in ones’ abilities, is imperative for achieving personal goals. Yet, many of us approach New Year’s resolutions with the innermost expectation that I’m not good enough, and this will help.
So let’s turn it upside down. What if you are ALREADY capable, and strong, and worthy, and smart?
And what if believing these things on the front end actually increases your chances of success?
Brene’ Brown, a clinical researcher (and fifth generation Texan) who is quickly becoming a household name, reminds us that “You either walk inside your story and own it, or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.”
If you’re like me, hustling for your worthiness has not gotten you many places thus far. But wearing your worth with pride and beginning goals with the expectation that achieving them will only spread icing on the cake of the person you already are: now that is the stuff that a new year is made of.
References:
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory.
Brown, B. (2015). Rising strong.
