I’ve been reading a lot of blog posts about the importance of setting goals and resolutions for the New Year. All of them are right that focusing on new desires is important and gets the life-juices flowing.

But one of the reasons that New Year’s resolutions are often dead by February 1 is that unknowingly, people are focused more on not having the thing they so desperately want. They don’t have enough money, aren’t thin enough, aren’t fit enough, aren’t healthy enough, aren’t organized enough—what they want is missing from their lives and they will finally be happy when they meet their goal.

And even though they set the resolution to get out of debt, lose weight, get fit, healthy, or organized, the majority of their thoughts and energy are still focused on the fact that they lack whatever their resolution is focused on.

When you think about the foundation principle that Energy Attracts Like Energy (also known at the Law of Attraction), you can begin to see that thoughts are our mental capital to invest wherever we want, with the dividends being our future life-experiences.

For instance, when you invest the majority of your mental capital on the fact that you don’t have enough money, you are actually building the account that creates more life experiences without enough money. If you invest that mental capital in the belief that you have more than enough money to meet all of your needs, your account includes an increase in life experiences of having more than enough money.

It’s often difficult to recognize where you are investing your thoughts. It seems like if you are focused on money—regardless if it is lack or abundance of money—you should get more money. It can be incredibly frustrating and discouraging to think you are focused on more money only to continue to get lack of money. But your life experiences are always letting you know where you are investing most of your mental capital.

A good way to tell where you are investing your thoughts and energy is by paying attention to how you feel. Focusing on lack feels like yearning or even desperation. This is why wanting often gets a bad rap; people confuse wanting with yearning. A feeling of lack always feels bad.

Wanting is a feeling of confidence that you will get the thing you desire. It’s knowing the goal you have set is yours. It’s enjoying the thought of what you want and being thrilled as you watch the process of life shifting to help you achieve your goal. It’s feeling engaged and excited to do the things you can do to bring your request to fruition and letting go of what you can’t control with an absolute knowing that the Universe (God, All-That-Is, Higher Self—whatever works for you.) is happily engaging all of its incredible resources on your behalf.

But it can be hard to shift your focus from yearning for something to thriving in the process of life that will bring you to your goal. Often it is easier to move yourself forward by shifting your mental capital from the account of money (or whatever your goal is) and to instead invest it in more general life accounts, such as feeling good most of the time, loving and laughing more easily, and enjoying your life more.

You are still investing your mental capital where you would like to build your life experiences, but there is less risk that the investments aren’t going into the account you truly intend. You can tell if you are investing more wisely because you feel good.

If you want to make New Year’s resolutions, by all means do it. Just pay attention to how you feel, and think about diversifying you mental and energetic investments so that you get a better return. You can tell you are putting your mental capital where you want because you get the immediate bonus of feeling good and having more fun right now.

Together we can do it!

Photo by Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net