Resolve to give yourself three (or more) wishes this new year

The holiday season abounds with good intentions—thankfulness and gratitude, thoughtfulness and gift giving, and, of course, the inevitable New Year’s resolutions.

I gave up formally making New Year’s resolutions a long time ago. It’s not that it’s a bad exercise—it’s a good thing to sit down and think about what needs improvement in one’s life. It’s just that it’s so easy to make resolutions and forget them before they do any lasting good.

In order for them to stick, I guess the first resolution one would have to keep is to keep one’s New Year’s resolutions, and I can’t say I know anyone who’s successfully done that.

Also, traditional resolutions seem a bit limited. I know they’re supposed to be things one can do to improve oneself, but I’m always tempted to add my hopes and prayers for the year to the list, too.

So, instead, over the years, the traditional resolution list in my house has evolved into an annual “wish list.”

The idea is that the first component of any action is intention. Writing down one’s wishes is a way of defining one’s wants and intentions so they can be made into realities.

I usually start getting it ready just after Christmas. My list is written on heavy paper, stuff that will last the year and also not be mistaken for something else and be discarded in the event it somehow becomes misplaced. It’s not large, usually about a sixth of a sheet of paper, in an oblong “list” shape. I don’t get very fancy about the affair—my wish list just says the year and “Wish List” at the top. However, if you decide to adopt the custom, feel free to get creative. The whole idea is to get the juices flowing and think outside the box for a bit, so one gets into the mindset of allowing new positive possibilities into one’s life.

Over the course of the year, my wish list lives, folded in half so you can just see the “2007 Wish List,” in a magnetic clip on my fridge. (Tucked in a dresser drawer or mirror, or somewhere you frequent but not in the way, works well too.) It’s handy that way, so if necessary, I can make additions, though I don’t do so frivolously. By the end of the year, most of the items on my list are usually satisfied. Every time an item on my wish list comes true, I carefully cross it out and write “Thank you!” next to it. It certainly never hurts to be grateful.

Over the course of the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I think about what to add to the wish list for the year. I take the whole affair very seriously. The idea is to add real, achievable, positive change to one’s life, so the wording is very important. (Remember the adage, “Be careful what you wish for”? And hey, you never know that your wishes won’t come true. In fact they just might, since that is the whole point of this exercise.)

For instance, if I were looking for a new job (I’m not), I would write something like, “getting hired for the perfect job that fully utilizes and expands my skills while generously compensating me,” rather than something like “getting rid of the rotten, crummy, low-paying job I’ve got.” After all, becoming unemployed is probably not the goal—but a satisfying position that pays better is.

Instead of “winning $90 million in the lottery” (a nice thought, I admit), I’d aim for something more realistic and lasting. Something like, “financial prosperity, security and stability for myself and my family” is not only more likely to come true but is also probably a lot closer to one’s true intention. After all, $90 million is great, but that kind of money can also bring all sorts of unforeseen problems with it—and what if suddenly circumstances dictate you really need $91 million? Or, what if “financial prosperity” means you’d make $180 million instead? Asking for the specific sum of $90 million would be limiting in that case.

Though I generally reserve wish list space for the larger, more momentous aspects of my life, wish lists can be pretty effective for small material desires too. Obviously, wishing for something like a new mp3 player does not carry the impact of wishing for a house should the event occur, but again, I’ve found it’s a good idea to ask for the “perfect” one of whatever one is looking for instead of being too specific. After all, by the time your wish is fulfilled, a better one of whatever you asked for may have been developed and you may get something better than what you originally intended.

The same holds true for non-material wishes. Wishing for your kids to stop fighting right now so you can have some peace and quiet to write your wish list may calm things down right now, but it does nothing for later. Wishing your kids would learn to more positively work out their differences would have a more lasting effect when it comes true, and it gets the wisher focused on how to achieve the end of peace and quiet—by working with the kids on settling disputes peacefully.

While “wishing” may seem like magical thinking, the idea is to focus on what you really want and get your unconscious and conscious minds working together on the achievement of those goals. By opening up the possibilities and making “wishes,” one can undo the mindset that the improvements one desires in one’s life are unachievable or that one’s problems are insurmountable.

There have been lucky accidents too. I’ve wished for the odd item on my annual list, only to have it appear nearly instantly, after looking for some time before finally deeming it important enough to be list-worthy. While it does seem probable that one is more likely to find something when one is looking for it, adding to the wish list does seem to sometimes get the universe’s attention and speed things up.

The trick is to keep it positive and make oneself more open to the possibilities the world has to offer. When you define what you want, it doesn’t nearly seem so hard to achieve it.

May all your wishes come true in 2007.

(Originally published in The Easton News, January 4, 2006)