The Power Behind New Years Resolutions

If you’re among the millions who have been polled in years past, you probably have a few of these popular New Year’s Resolutions on your list:
1) More time with the family
2) Increased physical fitness
3) Weight loss
4) Quit smoking
5) Get out of debt
6) Learn something new
7) Volunteer
8) Get organized
9) Get a better job
10) Enjoy life more.

You are in good company – these are the ten most popular resolutions among those who intend to improve their lives in the upcoming year. But will you also find yourself among the 86% who breaks your resolutions within the first six weeks of the New Year?

There is another approach. Rather than follow the tradition of New Year’s Resolutions, you could implement a priceless gift that you didn’t receive from a relative or friend during the holiday season just past. This gift has always been within you. It was given to you freely to create anything you desire by your Creator whose great pleasure it is to give you the Kingdom. It is the gift of Intention.

Resolutions vs. Intentions
Resolutions and Intentions appear to be interchangeable vehicles for change because both involve the greatest privilege given to the human species: the privilege of choice. However, there are fundamental differences between the two. Resolutions exist in the realm of our physical world; the American Heritage Dictionary defines resolution as firm determination, a course of action determined or decided on. Hence the list to change our habits and behaviors described in the top ten above. Our Resolutions are identified by our ego minds and introduced by the belief that something is wrong with how we’re living in our three dimensional world. Many of us have joined a gym early in January, only to have stopped working out by mid-February. Why? Because when we attempt to change a condition without changing our consciousness, it’s hard work! The amount of will power it takes to sustain a resolution through sheer determination is exhausting, and generally defeats our resolve to change.

An Intention, on the other hand, is a course of action that one intends to follow, where intend means to have in mind as something to be brought about, “the aim that guides the action”. In Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra calls intention the “real power behind desire.” And the root word of desire is “of heavenly body”, i.e. OF GOD. Intention is not the declaration of actions to take. It is the purpose or end result that guides our actions. Intention lives in our multidimensional soul consciousness, the Mind of our Heart. When we choose an Intention, we align with our soul’s desire for expression. I call Intentions the Thoughts of God. These thoughts are available to all of us and they are ready at any time to move through us and take form. We could say that our Intentions are always Divine Ideas, and it is by our willingness to have them manifest through us that we become co-creators with Spirit.

Let’s apply this concept with our plan to exercise. When operating from the realm of Intention for our bodies, we begin with a Thought of God that we are the healthiest and most wholesome physical beings now for full God expression. Our work in realizing that Intention will be to continue to know that truth in our consciousness and not in trying to manipulate our external circumstances until we are guided to do so.

So how do we access the Thoughts of God that are encoded in the Minds of our Hearts and awaiting manifestation? The answer is to listen to the language of Intentions.

Imagine that you are swimming in the Mind of God and that Divine Ideas are constantly being communicated to you through the languages of imagination and inspiration. Realize that one aspect of Spirit is Its movement from the invisible to the visible, bringing Its pure possibility into form. Realize too that you are Its vehicle for manifestation. And so you listen – not to your ego mind with its linear, logical arguments, but to the Voice within that inspires you to greater possibilities and ignites your imagination to bring those possibilities into form.

Listening to the language of imagination and inspiration requires that we surrender ourselves into the field of pure potentiality, to dance in the realm of all possibilities, to step outside the box, to choose to be a vehicle of Holy Manifestation. The ego may not be comfortable in this realm; it prefers the rational and predictable. Its reaction to an inspired idea that requires a leap of faith and trust is “No way!” So our first intention this year is to listen to that Still Small Voice and say “Yes!” Thus an Intention is born.