On becoming more real
If you’d rather listen than read, you can sit with the audio version of this here.
This year, let’s agree NOT to make new year’s resolutions, shall we?
I have never been a fan of them because they felt shallow – more like wishful thinking than anything rooted in what truly matters. But when I look at the content of the wishes, a pattern emerges: people are longing for a deeper, more intimate connection to something they value.
Losing weight? That’s code for wanting to feel good — and look good — in your body.
Joining a yoga class? Code for reconnecting with yourself.
Planning a trip to Ireland? Code for craving experience, joy, aliveness.
Saving more? Code for creating safety.
At their core, resolutions are chasing a feeling of being rooted, embodied, and safe — at home in your body.
Underneath it all, we are all looking for an unshakable sense of safety. We want belonging. A better quality life. A life that feels like it belongs to us – meaningful and real. In fact, the most commonly reported regret of dying people is: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me”.
How much of your life are you living on your terms?
For those who refuse to live by default.
The only way I’ve ever known to come close to that feeling of homecoming is through being authentic, inside myself. I know — it’s a seriously overused word in the self-help space. But I’m not talking about the Instagram version of it. I mean the real, messy, raw kind: dismantling the beliefs that kept me small, one honest conversation at a time.
Resolutions don’t bring you home. They promise a “new you,” but if they don’t address the beliefs keeping you stuck, they won’t stick either.
Here’s the truth: less than 10% of people actually follow through with their New Year’s resolutions. Nearly half quit by the end of January. Why? Because changing the habits that drive behaviours is really difficult if you don’t change your beliefs that drive them – about who you are, the world, and your role in shaping your reality.
For most of us, there’s a gap between who we are and who we think you should be. In psychology, it’s called the self-discrepancy trap: that painful space between your actual authentic self and your “ideal” or “ought” self.
Aligning with the first liberates you. The second keeps you in line through shame, anxiety, and the quiet hum of defeat. That gap erodes self-trust — the exact thing you need to feel safe and strong in your own skin.
I lived in that gap for years. I tried to quit smoking and drugs for a decade. I did all the right things to willpower my way to quitting – I tracked my habits, I went to meetings, I did the steps, told people to stay accountable. Guess what happened? Habits kept taking over, and every failed attempt reinforced the shame cycle that kept me stuck.
Exhausting! And ineffective.
Because you cannot change your behaviour (like smoking) while claiming the identity that drives it. “I am a smoker” is more than a label, it’s a belief system. It keeps you locked in by reinforcing hidden narratives inside ourselves, things like smoking is a lifelong struggle.
It wasn’t until I was willing and able to shift my identity around “I am NOT a smoker” that I quit. I explain how this works in the “Untangling Your Mind” workshop.
So unless we are willing to examine who we believe we are, we stay trapped inside the limitations of that identity, out of our awareness. That is how we keep unconsciously recreating the same patterns, year after year.
This year, I invite you to not be a resolution statistic.
Instead of focusing on what you want to do, I invite you to focus on who you are choosing to become.
Skip the resolutions. Set an intention:
Become more real.
That won’t make your life sparkly or pain free – because pain is a portal to yet-unclaimed truth. But it will make you feel more you. It will help you feel good in your own skin. It will help you identify and honour your needs, wants and desires.
And it will remind you that you matter.
Deep within you, there’s a woman capable of profound wisdom, strength, and authenticity. That woman is constantly seeking to emerge and be integrated into how you live. Develop a relationship with her by giving yourself permission to take up space in your life.
She becomes real the moment you decide she’s worth choosing.
where to next? Start here.
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