We have all been there, trying to manage job, social life, relationship, finances, exercise routine and overall sanity. Every January promises a new beginning, full of hope and vigor we tackle the ways life feels unbalanced. It’s no wonder the top three New Year resolutions include increasing physical activity, adopting a healthier diet and losing excess weight. At the core of making a resolution is the commitment to ultimately improve one’s life. Actively taking initiative to achieve a personal goal is so empowering yet somewhere along the way we lose focus and find ourselves back where we started. Could it be that we fail in understanding the process?

It dawned on me the other day during a float session I was wise enough to schedule in advance, that so much of what we do is more reactive and less proactive. We start exercising when we gain weight, we start a healthy diet when we receive a medical diagnosis, we spend more time with our partners because we reach a point of disconnect. Almost daily, my clients tell me they want to feel better, be more present, do the things that make them happy. Nobody wakes up to a fulfilled life or the physical prowess of Bruce Lee, it’s a direct result of repeated choices and decisions. Resolutions don’t just happen, they take the daily practice of intention and habit. Much like our coveted path to self actualisation, we neglect to see that It isn’t one decision, but a multitude of small decisions that with time yield a big outcome. We miss the opportunity along the way to live in accordance with our life goals and ultimately cultivate the life we desire. It’s not the new job or the new house that makes the difference, it’s the life we’re living in between those moments.

It was Tolstoy who once said, “True life is lived when tiny changes occur”. It’s about change across the lifespan or the course of one’s life— it’s a continuum. To actively engage in the ‘tiny changes’ or the process is truly living and therefore quintessential to self fulfilment.