2012: The Year We Decide To Change Before We All Die

Recently I came across this interesting article as a response to another article. It's called 30 Things To Start Doing For Yourself. I found it really intriguing that it was a response to the previous article "30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself " in that people wanted a more "positive" way to change themselves. Too often I think we look at ourselves in the mirror and think "what can I change about myself? Lose some weight, stop running from my problem, stop spending money on going out, stop being fake, and perhaps most of all stop lying to ourself." But how can we possibly be excited and motivated to change when we beat ourselves down first with such negativity and then expect our poor fragile souls to build ourselves up by telling us to stop doing this, stop doing that. The problem, I see, is that professionals are asking us to simply stop doing this behavior that we've innately or not been used to for years and years and years and sometimes most of our lives. Example: one lesson in the 30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself is to stop holding onto the past. Well, I'm not sure about yinz, but the fact that you have trouble holding onto a certain chapter of the past certainly holds some legitimacy and meaning to that past. Is it responsible for us to just drop it so easily as put on paper? The article claims "you can't move on to your next chapter if you keep re-reading your last". Perhaps so. Good point. But sometimes you have to keep referencing past chapters to enhance the meaning of the current one or to glean inspiration for the next ones. Because after all, we do learn from our past.

I'm a strong believer in positive change. The whole generalist social worker strengths-based approach is what I thrive on. Not so much on myself, but with others. I don't like to practice and pounce on what is wrong with someone and then try to fix that. I'm not going to lie, I do that more often than strengths-based, but doesn't everyone? I'm fat....so i'll lose weight. I'm poor....so i'll find another job. No. Then everything just becomes sort of a ...oh....i'll say it...pity party. Rather, lets take the perspective of the first article and say "ok yes, you are fat, but you love your animals. Let's start to take your dog on a walk around the block once a day." Or... "Yup, You are definitely poor. But you have an amazing talent in technology. Why don't we see if anyone can use your service setting up a website, etc, etc blah blah".

In the next few months, maybe years, I'm going to focus on the 30 Things To Start Doing For Yourself.
Of course, its naturally difficult to start something new with expectations of changing your life for the better. There's that worry of "this is how i've always been". There's still a sense of negativity even with a new perspective of optimism. Example: Start being true to yourself. Immediately it implies we've been untrue and negative to ourselves. This may not sound so bad relatively, but it still makes me think about how untrue i've been to myself before I think about how to "start being true" to myself.

In any case, this should be interesting. I'm not claiming to have any answers by the end of this and certainly not claiming to fulfill these self-help lessons, but I'm willing to further explore what they mean and how someone can better understand what it means to start doing something positive in their life.

Should be fun.