I know it’s the new year. And with the new year, always, it seems, comes the talk for resolutions.

Why is that?

For me, I think it boils down to two main reasons.

1. A new year gives us a chance for a clean slate. It’s an anchoring point for the start of a journey.
2. We tend to revisit the past year and all of the things you have done or wish you had done. We look at the failures we perceive and give a nodding pass to our accomplishments.

 I think it is great to set goals and look back at the recent past to see how it went. It’s a healthy habit. But we tend look at the things we do with a fault finding eye. At least I do. It’s much easier for me to beat myself up than it is to say, “well done, you.”

It’s that fault finding that drives me to constantly seek change and to constantly fail.

I forget about the one simple truth.

I am enough.

I don’t need to justify myself or explain why I’m doing or not doing.

I don’t have to earn my place in people’s lives or to live on this earth for that matter.

I don’t have to accept bad relationships or stay with people just because they are family.

I don’t have to change who I am, in order to fit in.

I am enough.

Now, just so you know, I am still working on totally believing that in my core. I am not at the point where it radiates out of me in a way where there are lingering doubts. But I am a lot farther along.

To even get that to place where I could start to believe my “enough-ness,” I had to take the time to know myself. That can be hard to do since we tend to first look at our faults and failures.

But when I got past the fault finding, the disappointment of not being where I thought I should be, or how differently I thought I needed to look, I began to see my true uniqueness and spirit.

It actually was pretty cool.

I’m beginning to know who I am and I like me.

The more content I was with me, the more I realized that all of those tired resolutions I dug out every year was for a fantasy me. A person who doesn’t exist.

The only thing I really needed to do and not just at the start of a new year, but everyday of the year, is to just be … me!

If I allow the real me to shine through, then I don’t have to force myself to be anything more.

Think about it for a second.

If you know you are enough, and learn who you are, you won’t need to rely on someone else’s standard for living.

• You will know that saying “no thanks” to things you don’t want to do is perfectly fine. You don’t need to explain it. It means that you are deciding your own priorities. 
• You will know when the time is right to make changes, because you will be in tune with your body and your heart.
• You will lose the guilt for doing what you when you do it because those decisions will come from the heart.
• You will be able to tell when a relationship is good for you or whether it is toxic. If it’s good, then you can relax and enjoy it. If it’s toxic, then you’ll realize the need for change.

I spent lot of my life feeling I wasn’t enough and worrying about what other people wanted me to do, look, and act. I didn’t want to disappoint those people, so I tried to fit into their mold for me. It was never enough. The more I gave in, the more they wanted. I wasn’t happy or fulfilled.

I feel more fulfilled these days. I’m saying no when I need to and saying yes when I want to.

My goal for this year is to just stay that course and remember that I am enough.

And so are you.