Freedom Friday: Reframing New Year Resolutions to Celebrate Your Best Self Instead of Trying To Fix Your Worst Self

Hello, hello, hello, hello. Welcome once again to the Unlearned podcast in 2024. I'm your host, ruth Abigail, aka RA, and, yes, this is the first Freedom Friday of 2024. Man, I cannot believe that y'all have been rocking with us for a year. Thank you so much for downloading, for sharing, for commenting on these episodes and on this, on this show. Y'all this has been a fun year and it's going to be a great year too, and I'm really, really excited about it. We're going to have some really great guests, great series coming up. So be sure to stay tuned. If you haven't already subscribed, do that. Subscribe on any platform that you want, to make sure to download all the episodes that you want to, and just keep tuning in and keep letting us know. You know what you're unlearning and what it is that you would like to unlearn. I would love to hear that. But, man, 2024 is here. 2024 is here and I don't know about you, but you know I'm kind of tired of the New Year's resolution thing. I think we probably got tired of that a while back, like I think a lot of us were just like, ah, we're done with New Year's resolutions, we're not going to do all that and all this stuff, you know. But here's the thing I was kind of reminded, actually at church, that New Year's resolutions aren't bad. We just do a bad job of executing them right. And so I I don't want to get rid of New Year's resolutions, but here's what I don't like about New Year's resolutions. I don't like that, and with New Year's resolutions, what we tend to do is think about all the things we didn't do right last year and say, okay, I'm going to do better this year. It's almost like we start off with this negative connotation of who we are and say, oh man, I got to change all this stuff. I got to work out more, I got to eat better, I need to, you know, spend more time with family, I need to spend more time with friends, I need to go back to church, I need to do all these things that I wasn't doing. And because it's a New Year now, I got to do them. And I put all this pressure on myself to do things that obviously were a little bit of a struggle to do before, or I just it just didn't have the value that I needed to have, which is okay. Some things in some seasons we don't value to the level that we value them and others, and there's nothing wrong with that, right? And so I think that the thing that bothers me about New Year's resolutions sometimes is that we focus on what's negative about us and then we try to fix it in the New Year. So last I'm sorry yesterday we started doing a little bit of training with the team at Angel Street and one of the things that we did was we did, we did strength finders. Right, we did our strength finders training and I don't know if you've ever done strength finders. It's been around for a long time. A lot of people have done it but the whole premise is assessing what you're good at and then finding ways to implement your strengths in your day-to-day work. Right, because the theory is we will enjoy what we do more if we focus more on what we're already good at, as opposed to try to fix things we're not good at. And I was reminded of that yesterday and reminded of the power of that, and I just think it could be a good thing to unlearn around New Year's resolutions. New Year's resolutions doesn't have to be about fixing what's not good about me. New Year's resolutions can really be about highlighting what's great about me and what I love and what I know I'm good at, and leaning more into that, right, I think we would. I know that we would actually be a lot more successful in growing if we have a focus not on what I don't like and what I'm disappointed in and what I wish I would have done and what I'm not good at and what I need to fix, but if we focus on what is it that I'm great at, what is it that I'm lean towards, what is it that maybe is something that's dormant inside of me that actually needs to come alive, because it's just who I am and don't go against the grain of who you naturally are. Lean into those things, lean into those strengths, even if they aren't things that people may even know about you. But you know about you, right? And so I think that this year I certainly wanna unlearn that I have to focus on fixing me. I don't always have to focus on fixing me. Sometimes I can focus on cultivating what's already in me and letting other people right Focus on cultivating what's in them. And as we grow together in community, as you grow together in partnership with other people, then weaknesses are actually covered by other people's strengths. You don't have to be good at everything. It's okay not to be good at everything. Let people be what they're great at and you're good at what you're great at, and then, when we come together, all the bases are covered. And so that's what I'm unlearning and that's what I wanna challenge you to unlearn this year, as we're thinking about what we want the year to be, how we want to focus in the year. Man, don't focus on fixing you all the time. Focus on cultivating what's already good and what you already know you're strong at, and get better, get stronger so that you can show up as your best self, no matter where you are. All right, so that's it. That's it. Like I said, subscribe, make sure to download. We're coming up with some new series here soon that I'm pretty excited about, and we'll share more about that later. But until then, let's keep unlearning together so that we can be more free Peace. ["facebook"]. Thank you once again for listening to the Unlearned Podcast. We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode. Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think. We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom. See you then.