Resolution: Getting Things to Work Out The Way We Want

The Nigerian Observer

IT is the usual trend at the end of the year or the beginning of a new year for every individual to draw up a plan of what to do, what to achieve or what to do away with in the New Year. For some people, it is to put a stop to certain vices they have acquired or habits such as, smoking, drinking, womanising and adopt good ones that would make them become better persons.

While for some others, it could be a decision to move home, or change job, to put an end to a relationship that have been giving them a lot of headaches or a choice between starting a new career or seeing more of their children whom they have once abandoned or to get married. The list is endless some may want to enhance themselves by furthering their education, drawing closer to God or decide to put an end to an existing feud with a friend or family member. But all these could be mere words if the zeal to carry them out is not there.

Year-in-year-out, people make resolutions that they don’t keep to. They break the intentions which they have set for themselves even before the middle of the year. What is the use of a resolution therefore when it can easily be broken. So it is better not to start what one cannot finish. It is better to allow oneself to flow along with time, being your old usual self and take whatever life has to offer on the way.

Making a resolution is a way of acknowledging that one has a problem which needs to be solved. Give yourself 24 hours to try a radical new way of solving problems and you might find the transformation you have been looking for. “We have been led to believe that we can solve our problems by working harder, thinking smarter, perfecting our logic says Carol Oshborn Author of Solved By Sunset, but none of these things makes us an agent of change. Thinking, rationalizing, figuring things out, all these processes take place in the left side of the brain and deal with what we have and not what we want. To solve your problem, you may need to plug into the right side of the brain, the center of creating, intuition and feeling.

Throw your emotions on board and start trusting the things that inspire you and you may discover radical and productive new outlook – and one that enables you to see through the caos of your life and into what you want.

To work towards a solution, all you need to do is to devote time to a series of exercises that call on the right intuitive side of your brain. When you are always pushing, you can’t create but if you can just stop “willing” for a while and take the time to think quietly then you will be able to let in new ideas.

There is a temptation to believe that if we try hard enough, and keep all our energy focused on our goals, we can get things to turn out the way we want rather than relying on mere words give up the illusion of control, step outside the left-to-do-it-all/make-it-happen brain and develop the capacity to take risk. Life is not a process to be mastered. It is an adventure to be lived. If you continue to wait for the solution to your problem to make you happy, satisfaction will elude you. But if you learn to loosen your grip and start exercising faith, acceptance, creativity and inspiration, you will start living life more fully. Things won’t always work out the way you want, but it will be your set path.

So whatever your intentions are this year, it can only materialize with your resolve and determination.