How can we develop ourselves throughout the year, without succumbing to rigid, goal-oriented resolutions?

At one point in my journey, I actively rebelled against New Year’s resolutions. But resolutions stem from our desire for personal growth, and I don’t want to abandon that. The issue isn’t with personal development itself, but with the rigidity of traditional resolutions.

As I enter a new year, I select a few key ideas and treat them as guiding stars in a constellation. I don’t always need to see every star throughout the year. I’m free to change what I’m doing on any day, for any reason, because as long as I’m moving toward one of them, I’m on the right path.

The problem is that I’m taking in too much peripheral information and scattering my attention around. Instead, I should be feeding my mind in rich, controlled meals and giving it plenty of calm resting time between them.

~ Peter Adeney from, New Year’s Resolution

There’s enough attitude in Adeney’s article to repel you. Those two sentences though, are true and insightful. What he’s pointing to is the first star in my constellation: Serenity!

Ideals are like stars; You will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But, like seafaring men on the desert of waters, you choose them as our guides, and following them reach your destiny.

~ Carl Schurz

Instead of serenity we can say: If you want any chance of seeing your constellation, you must avoid light pollution. Being inundated by peripheral information and scattering attention will certainly blind us.

I feel the sentiment with which Tycho Brahe died, perhaps as strongly as he did — His “ne frustra vixisse videar” was a noble feeling, and in him had produced its fruits — He had not lived in vain — He was a benefactor to his species — But the desire is not sufficient — The spark from Heaven is given to few — It is not to be obtained by intreaty or by toil — To be profitable to my Children, seems to me within the compass of my powers — To that let me bound my wishes, and my prayers — And may that be granted to them!

~ John Quincy Adams, from, John Quincy Adams on Efficiency vs. Effectiveness…

There’s more in the astronomy metaphor that works: I have to pause and intentionally look up, lest I trip and fall— which reminds me I have to be intentional about looking at my constellation of ideas. The stars are only visible at night and only if I avoid light pollution— which shows me I have to find the right time and place (whatever works for me) to reflect on my constellation.

For it’s always that way with the sacred value of life. We forget it as long as it belongs to us, and give it as little attention during the unconcerned hours of our life as we do the stars in the light of day. Darkness must fall before we are aware of the majesty of the stars above our heads.

~ Stefan Zweig

In the night sky stars subtly shift, rising four minutes earlier every day. Similarly, our constellation is readily visible at first—it’s fresh in our minds. But as the months pass it moves to the background of our thoughts. Soon (like the stars overhead during our daytime) it’s so familiar we don’t see it at all. Seeing our constellation throughout the year requires intentional and significant effort.

It’s instinctive. Sometimes you plan it, try it out, rehearse it and it wouldn’t feel right, you’d have to change it. And you keep at it until you find the perfect marriage of the scene with the style and content and form elements. It’s what you’re looking for, when they just fall like a jigsaw piece, they just fit together and you feel that’s right. But you have no proof that it’s right! You only have your own instinct and that comes from experience.

~ Sam Mendes, from Sam Mendes: No One Is Owed Anything

Have you ever really looked at the night sky? If it’s dark enough, at first it’s just stars everywhere. But soon shapes appear. It’s like seeing shapes in clouds. There’s something in our minds that loves to imagine those shapes. We see vague shapes in clouds and stars, and then we tell a story, rooted in our real world, to explain the shapes.

Life in itself is neither good nor evil; it is the scene of good or evil as you make it. And, if you have lived a day, you have seen all: one day is equal and like to all other days. There is no other light, no other shade; this very sun, this moon, these very stars, this very order and disposition of things, is the same your ancestors enjoyed, and that shall also entertain your posterity.

~ Michel de Montaigne

It’s the story I’m telling myself, and not the constellation of ideas, that holds the meaning. I’m not imagining my constellation is bear-shaped, in order to become more bear-like in the new year. There is a story I’m telling myself about being more bear-like, and then I start to see that shape in my constellation.

If that sounds crazy, look at the shape, and only then look at the description, of the constellation of Boötes. Where is the meaning? Is it in the shape, or in the story?

This is exactly backwards. Forming and achieving aspirations is how life gets easier and more spacious. It’s how people build skills, gain experience, invent things, declutter their homes and lives, start businesses, and enrich the mind with art, exploration, and creative work.

~ David Cain, from Do Quests, Not Goals

In the new year I want to tell a new story about myself. I want to look at my constellation of ideas and be reminded of that story. I want to hear this new story, over and over until it becomes my new truth.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

ɕ