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Marianne Klancke: Everything old can be a new joy again

by Marianne Klancke
Certified professional coach
Sense of Community:

Chances are you are not resolution-ing any more. Whatever challenge you thought you were going to conquer, you are not. Your attitudes and actions of fixed determination may already be on the back-guilt-burner, at least until next year when you may or may not choose to play the resolution game again. Oh well.

Drat. What will happen to that happy-dance feeling of success you crave? Where is that desired sense of self-satisfaction and accomplishment for which you long? Do not tell me you are willing to wait for the next annual resolution cycle to feel the joy you need today. That will not do.

Consider this progressive, but backward, approach. Everything old can be a new joy again. This will be your year of retro-resolutions. How? Go back. Go back to the feeling, thought, action, mood, or mode that has brought happiness to you in the past. Then, determine how to bring that sensation forward. Now you are designing your own personal Joy Comeback.



If bell bottom pants and ABBA can make a comeback, so can those wonderful, giddy feelings you have had about yourself. The purpose of your retro-resolution is to feel revitalized joy. You know joy, that overwhelming emotion that puts a smile on your face and excitement in your heart. Joy, after all, is the bottom line we all are seeking in our constant resolution pursuits.

Let’s do it. Concentrate on revisiting a time of your life that has brought you pure joy. What has it been? Did you really feel great when you…? Those times you spent doing … were your best ever. You could conquer the world when you were … What comes to mind?



You will recognize your past joy event when you feel it ” the memory feels great. Know that we all have our joy of choice. Individual to each of us are those wonderful thrills of thought and feeling that literally raise our energies.

Now contemplate, not the happening of your joy memory, but the feeling of your experience. Did you feel capable, intelligent, strong, connected, safe, unique, appreciated, peaceful, stimulated, needed, vital, successful, independent, or creative? This sensation was the very source of your joy, then, and can be the target of your Joy Comeback, now. Once you have determined your personal joy flavor, you can focus on satiating your senses with that very feeling.

If your joy is jazzed by the feeling of achievement, for example, then allow yourself to absorb and exude that feeling. Read about leaders and innovators. Celebrate your own accomplishments. Join an extreme-achievers support group and align yourself with others who find joy in making things happen. Find yourself in activities that embrace your drive. Delight in worldly feelings of achievement as they are everywhere.

How does a Joy Comeback work on the larger, group scale? In our community, where have we felt joy in the past? With projects gone by, have we not experienced joy with our many successes in consensus building? Now, do not go cynical on me ” productive communication has happened right here in Grand County many times over. What, then, is the feeling we can attach to our collective joy?

Together, we can comeback to the joy of safety in our participation. Safety is a feeling created by concentrated efforts of collaboration, transparency, authenticity, disclosure, trust, and respect. Consciously focus on these joy producing interactions when you contribute to the whole. Feel this Joy Comeback – community style.

Everything old can be your new joy again. Revisit your exhilarating happiness of yore. Connect your past events of high satisfaction with the specific joyous feelings experienced at that time. Purposely revitalize those basic feelings of joy in your life. Think, act, read, seek, discuss, practice, choose, sense, watch, record, and retro-resolve the familiar feelings that will always bring you back to joy.

” Marianne Klancke is a certified professional coach and group development facilitator. What are your coaching questions or communication concerns? She welcomes any comments: mklancke@talkshopcoach.com.


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