Why Ditching New Year's Resolutions is Magickal!

Everywhere around the globe, during the last part of the year people make New Year's resolutions of what they are going to do (or not going to do) in the coming year. Whether the resolution is to lose weight, stop smoking, be kinder, or spend more time with the family, most people make resolutions. Sadly, most people also fail to achieve those resolutions by February 1 of the new year (82% of people fail according to some research).

Since New Year's resolutions don't seem to work for most people, why bother? If you want your life to change, you will probably find that you gain better results with a magickal yearly aim. While a magickal yearly aim sounds very much like a New Year's resolution, a yearly aim is actually quite different. While a New Year's resolution is about "things" and "doing" or "not doing," a magickal yearly aim is about improving everything in your life by raising the level of your Being through the use of magick. Why would you want to raise the level of your Being? According to Gurdjieff and other metaphysical teachers:

"The level of your Being attracts the level of your life."

Thus the fastest way to change your life is to raise your level of Being. The higher your level of Being, the higher will be the things you attract into your life: a higher salary, a higher caliber of people around you, a better level of health, a higher feeling of satisfaction with your life. Instead of just trying to change one thing in your life with a New Year's resolution, wouldn't it be so much more fun to play with a magickal yearly aim that requires less work and produces better results in every area of your life?

What's a Magickal Yearly Aim?
A magickal yearly aim is a magickal exercise of your choosing that you practice all year long. The goal of this magickal yearly aim is to identify and dissolve the resistance in your Being that causes you to think, act, and do in ways that detract from your life. For instance, suppose you find that the people around you at work are not as kind, giving, warm, and caring as you might like. In fact, suppose that you find these people downright mean or overly competitive. This kind of cutthroat behavior may just be part of the company culture. That culture existed before you were hired, and has never changed since you've been an employee. What if you could use a teeny-tiny magkical yearly aim to change the way people around you behave?

An Example of a Magickal Yearly Aim
One of our students made that very change with a magickal yearly aim that was so simple as to be absurd. His aim was to remind himself daily of this fact: "Gratitude is free." Then he would find some way to express his gratitude or caring, no matter how tiny that expression. Since he was uncomfortable, at first, with changing his behavior at work, fearing that people would find his behavior odd and suspicious, he began with something less obvious. Each day, he would remind himself that gratitude was free, and then he would do a kind act for a stranger. More importantly, he would tell no one of his kind act. Some of his kind acts included:

• helping someone load groceries into their car 
• smiling at a person sitting on a bus bench and telling them to have a great day
• paying for a taco for the person behind him at the taco truck
• allowing a car into traffic in a crowded intersection
• placing an extra roll of toilet paper near the toilet before the current roll ran out

As you can see, these acts ran from the obvious to the "pay it forward variety." All these acts centered around the fact that he was grateful for all he had in life (though he still wished for more, such as a caring work environment), and he wished to share it with his fellow humans. After our student practiced his free gratitude on strangers for a few months, he was able to gradually practice his yearly magickal aim at work. Again, his gratitude was expressed simply. He would:

• model happiness whenever possible with a happy demeanor
• thank people whenever possible for their efforts, even if those efforts were part of the job
• bring an extra cup of coffee from the coffee cart to a random fellow employee once a week
• thank his boss when he could for any praise
• praise his boss whenever he could

As he began modeling gratitude, slowly he began to feel happier regardless of how the people around him acted. Even in the face of overly-competitive behavior, he offered gratitude. This gratitude in no way reduced his level of performance or his steps towards his goals at work, but all of his work was done with a smile and a feeling of warmth. Eventually, over a period of nine months or so, his co-workers began to change. A little at a time, the people around him smiled more. He sometimes was the recipient of a free cup of coffee. His workload became easier to bear, and his yearly reviews were much less of a trial. His promotion also came sooner than he had thought possible.

Gratitude is a Higher Level of Being
Some scientists have studied the various parts of our physical body, such as blood pressure and heart rate, and found that people who are happier are also healthier. Studies also show that emotions such as gratitude, love, caring, and faith have a higher vibrational frequency than emotions such as sadness, depression, hatred, and fear. While this may seem self-evident, many of us don't make use of this knowledge. But since we know that New Year's resolutions quickly fail for most people, wouldn't it be so much easier to use a simple exercise that helps us practice a magickal yearly aim? If you could raise every aspect of your life just by doing one kind act for a stranger each day, wouldn't it be worth it?

As with our student, you can identify a part of your Being or your life that has a great deal of resistance. Then create a simple magickal exercise as part of your yearly aim to address that resistance. The exercise should be small, simple, and easy to remember. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Workaholics: Hire more angels to do the heavy lifting so you can work less
• Depressed People: Make Sun Yellow a primary color in your life for a year (and try the Sun Yellow Candle Blessing daily)
• Feeling Lost: Practice getting information from the Universe daily to realize you are never lost
• Stuck in a Rut: Move your body to move out of the rut (try cross crawling to get unstuck)

Sounds simple enough, right? This year, why not ditch the New Year's resolutions and try a magickal yearly aim? Need help? Ask us on our Facebook page... or post your magickal yearly aim and inspire others!

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