The great thing about the New Year?

It’s about starting over. It demands the past be left behind. It promises the opportunity to abandon mistakes, heartache, pounds, vices, choices, and regrets.

The New Year promises…. a do over, a restart, a blank slate, and a sense of taking charge of life.

This year, remember that you are ONE.

You are no longer a couple, a duet, a twin or a two-some – Only remember it in a positive rather than negative manner. Don’t focus on the breakup. Start viewing it as your time to break out.

Here are 12 New Year’s Resolutions for the Broken Hearted. Put them to good use because only when one is fully restored and their best possible selves, can they attract people who who fully deserve them.

1. Alone Time: Conquer loneliness. A breakup is a time of transition and of change. It’s meant to temporarily stall a person until they learn enough to move on. Therefore, don’t see being alone as a deficit. It is the most valuable part of a breakup. It is the peace and solitude for reflection. Think of it as a time that allows the heart to grow when relationships simply allow the heart to share.

2. Alone Activities: Embrace the excitement of taking on challenges alone. What can a single person do by themselves? Take a class, go horseback riding, go fishing, go hiking, skiing etc. Take time to do activities alone. It will be empowering.

3. Yearlander: Write a 12 month calendar of what new activity or thing that will be conquered. Pencil in January as a hike, February as skydiving, etc. Whatever the new year means to you.

4. Subscribe, Attend or Listen: Subscribe to a motivational magazine or attend a brilliant motivational or spiritual seminar or listen to a sermon or motivational outlet at least once a week. Make sure this commitment is for the next twelve months.

5. Lost and Found: Instead of focusing on what was lost in a relationship with another, focus on the parts of yourself that you gave away. Get them back! If the relationship brought tears. Stop crying. If it brought over talking. Shut up. If it brought yelling. Be quiet. If it brought disrespect. Show respect.

6. The Notebook Project: Instead of trying to avoid the tears and the pain get it out. Watch a movie like the Notebook and cry. Listen to the worst getting over you song and cry. Go out and run and run harder. Go boxing and punch that bag even harder.

7. Broken Hearted First Aid: Make a list of what will or would make you feel even a teeny bit better. Dig very deep and figure out what would make you feel better? A phone call to an ex? To a sibling or parent? A night out on the town. A big send off letter that goes no farther than your trash can? A weekend in the woods? A night in the city? A buddy who’s a great wingman and the best bar in town? Just make a list and go for it.

8. Root Camp: This would be short for Romantic, Boot Camp. It’s unhealthy to bottle up pain and emotions so as Olivia Newton John once said, “Let’s Get Physical.” Make a calendar of workouts and sweat out the heartache. Actually there is probably no better way to get over loss than physically throwing into it because the emotional side has a tendency to seek shelter in ways that aren’t always healthy.

9. Screw Em: Make a list of things that were given up to satisfy the other person. Then just do it. If watching movies, watching sports, going out, staying in, entertaining, vacations, were abandoned to keep the significant other happy – RECLAIM them. Make a list and start getting back to the business of the individual you are.

10. You Day: Plan one day just for you and own it. Make it,,”National YOU Day.” It’s all about you. Mark it on the calendar so the anticipation builds and celebrate YOU! Make the day beginning to end all the loves and eccentricities and everything that make up you. Learn to celebrate yourself and when you are ready for a new relationship make sure you tell them that once a year, you celebrate, “National YOU Day.” So that they decide to come along for that ride and know exactly who you are and that you deserve to be celebrated.

11. Spirit Reclaimed: Let’s face it. We don’t move on unless we embrace our spirituality and larger sense of the world that every thing and every one we meet happens for a reason. Let go. Let entirely go of the past year. Be thankful for this person that you lost and find what they left you with. Chances are that if you loved them once they might have not been the right person for you, but that they were a better person before things turned ugly. The New Year demands a new spirit. Let go.

12. Love Yourself: Make a list of all the things that make up you. Make a list of all the things that you love about yourself. This is probably the most important New Year’s Resolution for the broken hearted. Why? Because the person that left never made you feel loved so over time, it made you love yourself less. If you don’t love yourself then you won’t learn the most important lesson of a breakup or divorce. Love yourself enough to never attract yourself to someone with no true ability to love again.

Let this New Year be about the new you! Let it be about uno, singular, about recognizing that it’s never possible to be the best part of two until acknowledging and celebrating the best part of self.

Here’s to NEW YOU!

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