Christmas comes, and Christmas goes, and still, things are the same.
No matter what others say, what presents they give and receive.
Even though people resolve and talk about goodness and generosity during Christmas, the rest of their year, and maybe even including the holiday season, is anything but.
What is the bad habit of Christmas, which we let happen again, and again?
Old habits die hard.
We’ve all been bombarded the message that Christmas is all about family, friendships, generosity and forgiveness.
The reality? Is that it’s true – people do tend to be friendlier, more forgiving, and more generous during holidays.
My question then is this: Why not every other day of the year?
It’s as if we’ve fallen to the habit of being kinder and more giving during Christmas, well in fact, we, and the rest of the world, can stand to benefit from that all the other days of the year.
Christmas then becomes a free pass to change behavior and habits that otherwise, we would not exhibit.
It’s also a bad habit of ours, to let go of our self-control, and just allow the environment, the people, and the times to dictate how we should be thinking, acting, and feeling.
And that’s the bad habit of Christmas – making us merry only one part of the year, instead of helping us to be consistently kind, forgiving, and generous.
Truth is? It’s not Christmas’ fault.
It’s our fault, for letting that happen, and for not doing anything to counter the conditioning.
Habits die hard, and it’s challenging to change them, especially if we don’t know how.
People don’t change from what they hear
People don’t even change from what they want. Not exactly.
For all of my life, I’ve heard the sermons, the messages, and the lessons, again, and again. And as I grow older, it gets harder to just absorb what I’m hearing.
Maybe if I hear it enough times again, and again. But, we all don’t have that luxury.
And for some, there’s improvement, and that comes not from the sermons, but from a decision. But for a lot of us, it’s so difficult to make that big change in that one key area of our life.
Yes, because there’s no concerted effort to do so.
And yes, because we don’t see ourselves as such.
At the heart of change, is this:
People absolutely follow through on who they believe they are.
People change into who they believe they are
If and when, people believe that they should become another person, or be more of who they are, then that’s what happens.
That’s where the life change begins to happen.
I used to believe that I would never be fit and healthy. So what happened? I never watched what I ate, never worked out and exercised, never even took care of myself.
And then my health gave out, and my back gave out. I couldn’t walk. Initially, the doctors were telling me what I needed to do to stay healthy, but I never followed them for long.
Because in my head, I still did not believe that I could become healthy.
That all changed, when I was able to make a shift into “I believed that I could be healthy.”
Then, into: “I am a person who takes care of my health.”
Once the belief changes, all the habits and tools then kick into high gear.
Follow through on who you are
And if you don’t like that, then, despite what everyone says, you can still change that.
Align with what makes you truly happy, and break the limits that you impose on yourself.
Christmas happiness and generosity doesn’t have to happen only during Christmas.
Make it happen anytime you want.
Starting with you.
What’s something that you believe about yourself? Please share in the comments below!
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