As we reach the new year, we will go through the usual Boxing Day sales madness to considering the many discounted gym memberships. New year is the time when suddenly there is a will to transform ourselves whether it is through losing some weight to changing our dress style, anything that invigorates our life to make us feel ‘brand new’ again.

Some of us will make new year resolutions and set goals. However, when we reach a sense of equanimity with the self that is when we realise that we don’t need to shop till will drop for that instant gratification nor set unrealistic goals in January as opposed when we are really ready to make the change.

This is because we can see through the commercialisation that happens around this time of the year. Also we have a better chance of reaching our goals if we embark on it when we are ready to make the commitment.

I am a leadership coach as well as a lawyer and I am used to asking my clients what it is they wish to see change in their life by working with me before we get down to work. The work we do is always to do with the inner self.

Will you be making New Year's Resolutions for 2023?

With coaching clients, it is always about changing the mindset and removing the hurdles or obstacles that is preventing them from being where they wish to be. With my legal clients it is about understanding what their ideal outcome is before we agree to work as sometimes what a person desires cannot be achieved in law.

It helps to have a resolution, but it has a better chance of succeeding if there is an emotional reason why behind it as during the challenge if we hit a tight spot, we need something to carry us throug, so we stay on course. As we close the year and get ready to welcome a new dawn so to speak, it pays to stand back a bit and reflect on how far we have come. Reflection and gratitude can work as a springboard but again this needs some deep inner work first.

The year 2022 for the nation has been challenging with three Prime Ministers and wholesale ministerial changes so much so that it is hard to keep up. Added to all this is as a nation we continue to fight the aftermath of the pandemic and now we have the cost-of-living crisis that has resulted in key workers going on strike at a critical point when really, we need all hands to the deck.

Every person will have their justifiable reasons for doing what they do but when people entrusted to provide public service decide to go on strike it leaves society even more exposed as an already broken system is now on the brink of collapse.

Contrast this with a recent meeting I had with a Ukrainian refugee who came to the UK a few months back with their two children so that they could study and be safe.

Even if we indulge in our own personal or national highs and lows, and sorrows, when we speak to someone who is forced to start their life in a foreign country after fleeing their homeland with only the clothes on their back, we realise how blessed we really are. This person is no different to us, they once owned their own furnished home and but now have nothing.

Personal reflections and reflections on the hardship others less fortunate than us is a salutary reminder that we are enough, and we have enough.

That is not to say we must not strive to better ourselves from becoming better human beings, but it means we need to focus less on getting carried away with whatever the masses are doing and do what is best for us.

Daxa Manhar Patel is a solicitor, author and executive coach

New Year's Resolutions work best with emotional motivation: Daxa Patel