At the start of every year, my human, Annie, attends a workshop with Claire P from Write For Your Life, in which the participants use freewriting exercises to decide on a theme for the upcoming year.

A theme is different from a resolution or a set of goals, because it provides a focus or a concept for you to apply to your life and decisions in whatever way you can. Previous themes Annie has chosen have included ‘balance’, ‘boundaries’, and my personal favourite – ‘be more Stanley’!

For 2025, Annie chose ‘be a star’, which involves several different layers of meaning.

The phrase itself came from a poem one of her writer friends, Sam, posted on Substack, which included the line: ‘be a star for other people’.

Annie had been thinking about trying to alter her mindset away from snap judgements, a tendency towards irritation and not being as charitable in her attitude as she might be. It was a conscious effort to choose joy, compassion and trying to bring more light into both her life and that of those around her. And I’m all in favour of that!

I am a firm believer that you can choose how you respond to things. It may not always be easy, especially if you have ingrained patterns in your brain that have been in place for many years. But, if you make a conscious effort to take a moment and reflect before reacting to situations, you can definitely retrain your brain to avoid those split-second rages.

Annie has certainly found this to be true – though she tells me she sometimes finds it hard to avoid falling back into bad habits, especially when she’s low on sleep. But she’s persevering and – who knew? – she’s discovering that it’s much nicer to be positive about things than it is to be grumpy all the time!

Why don’t you give it a try? Next time you find yourself snapping at a family member about something trivial, try stopping and taking a few deep breaths. Then consider whether getting angry will actually achieve anything. What would it be like to smile, brush off your irritation and say something positive instead?

You might be surprised by how easy it is and how much it can improve your day!

Don’t forget to let me know how you get on – or if there’s anything you’d like me to talk about in an upcoming blog post!

You can email me at wisebearstanley@gmail.com

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