New resolution: You already have everything you need

Now might just be the time to stop planning and accumulating and start actually living your best life.

by Kristin Cicciarelli — 

Have you ever set out to accomplish a goal, determined to see it through, when you realized you did not know where to begin? Suddenly your good intentions were stopped dead in their tracks by a lack of resources and materials. A good example might be those 20 pounds you have been meaning to lose since the Reagan administration.

Why, just last New Year’s Eve, you vowed yet again that you would be Heidi Klum-slim by Valentine’s Day —– and you would have been, too, except that you first needed the $199.99, 16-part “Fat Blaster Program” sold exclusively on QVC. Unfortunately, you did not get around to ordering the program until the third week in January, and it took a full week just to unwrap it and figure out how to use it.

By February 14, your enthusiasm and faith in the program had waned and you decided to go with something a little more realistic — like gastric bypass surgery. Or maybe yoga-lates, but not until you had purchased a closet-full of really cute yoga outfits that, to date, have not been worn.

Does any of this strike a chord? Are you subconsciously setting up roadblocks to your success? Are you waiting to write that novel you have been talking about for the last decade until you get a brand new computer with all the bells and whistles? Are you really going to try to meet that special someone — just as soon as you complete your third Master’s degree, land a new job and find new homes for your 12 cats?

Consider this: perhaps you have everything you need — right now, right at your fingertips — to realize your dreams. Maybe you do not really need another fitness gadget, expensive electronic device or risky surgery to accomplish your goals. Now might just be the time to stop planning and accumulating and start actually living your best life.

Kristin Cicciarelli, M.A., is a freelance writer in Scottsdale, Ariz. She attended the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago culinary school, is certified in Nutrition for the Foodservice Manager and has worked in the health food industry. [email protected].

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 25, Number 1, February/March 2006.