Reset the Clock, Not Just the Calendar

A Solution – Not A Resolution – For Changing Things Up In 2023

By Dr. Chad McIntyre

The “New Year’s Resolution” has become tragically cliche, with research reporting as low as 8% of them being kept. Conceptually, resolutions at the start of a new year seem like a swell idea, but the reality is that most of them are just promises lacking the necessary ingredients to be actualized. And we are a self-deprecating bunch, you know, so it is as easy to beat ourselves up about the broken promise we made as it is to break the resolutions themselves. It just does not work anymore. Resolutions treat problem-solving like flipping a switch and problems usually get solved more by the turning of a knob. Things that do not work should be revised, right? So, how about some alternate solutions?

First, try to restart the clock. Sometimes, you may be dealing with a problem that to solve feels like a Rubix cube, other times it is like a 1,000 piece puzzle, and occasionally it is comparatively simpler. No matter what it is, allow yourself the freedom of restarting your healing time to now rather than maintaining a running clock. Like a video game, you have gotten to the next level of your journey simply by being right where you are. Now, you get to regroup.

The mind is like a plot of fertile land, and it will grow whatever you plant. Have you ever known someone who complains about not having any money or about how terrible their relationships are? Do they typically fall into a financial windfall or have great relationships? Most likely not, right? Their mindsets are tuned to a radio station playing the kind of melancholy music that feeds further into their plights. The right mindset is foundational to their ability to turn it around in these areas of their life. Health, as we teach it, is about your resilience, your adaptability in the quest to live your absolute best possible life. We must plant those seeds with divine intention.

Next, take it one day at a time. Health and wealth alike are achieved by good habits over a period of time that we do not control. We control the adoption of the right habits, not the timeline needed to gain health or wealth. So, pretend you are driving at night. You can only see the 200 feet in front of you. Yesterday’s pain stays in yesterday. We cannot see far at all into the future, not even an hour from now. Just stay present, moment to moment. Tough goal, but the juice is worth the squeeze once you figure it out. Stick with it, restart the clock again when you get out of rhythm, and give the burdens of past and future up to God and stay in the present.

On New Year’s Eve at the end of 2021, my wife, Tabatha, led our family through what proved to be a memorable exercise. We gathered around the firepit, the six of us, four kids with ages ranging from six to fourteen, and we wrote down the feelings and experiences that we wanted to leave in 2021. Then, we burned them. By the time you read this, we will also have opened the time capsule that holds the letters we wrote to ourselves and each other with the hopes and dreams we held for 2022. I recall pausing for a moment to catch a glimpse of everyone, the littles and the bigs, even the littlest, rising to the occasion to own an opportunity at a fresh start. It was not a resolution. Instead, we waved goodbye to yesterday, thankful for its lessons but intent on the next phase.

Finally, cultivate a belief in your resolve. You were born to figure it out, you were built with the innate capacity to adapt even under the harshest of circumstances. It will get better. It will get better. Pray about it, meditate on it; plant deeply into the fertile soil that is your mind an unflappable belief in your ability to regain and sustain your health. Attitude is the single most underrated aspect of living an optimal life. They call it the LAW of attraction, not the theory or the hypothesis of attraction, for a reason. Time after time after time for thousands of years, the students of success have identified that if you think good things, you are far more likely to get good things.

One comment on “Reset the Clock, Not Just the Calendar

  1. Joanne May

    I love this Chad! I pray this year will be the best yet for you, Tabatha, Caleb, Kylie, Jordan and Quinn!

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