If you are looking to make more permanent changes in your life you may want to do away with resolutions and look to creating a deeper sense of living instead. It is easy to do and just by entering into some basic dialogue with your family you may just find that the things you wish to resolve become a natural by-product of some simple reflections. Here are some excellent reflections to go around the dinner table and ask each other:

• What are you grateful for today?
• Did you perform an act of kindness today?
• What was the best part of your day?
• What was the most challenging part of your day?

Reflecting on your day to determine what the best part and the most challenging part helps to not only start conversations to share our days, but it promotes mindfulness, gratitude and perspective. Identifying the hardest part of the day alongside the best helps to combat catastrophizing or generalizing into a negative world view. Perspective is everything.

These reflections help with the overall and lifelong process of improvement. Reciting daily gratitudes teaches us how to be mindful in every moment big and small. Identifying our challenges reminds us of our messy selves and who we want to be, and how to be that person. Remembering our acts of kindness every day reminds us simply to be kind. Perspective and remembering the good and bad in life helps us stay grounded.

These reflections are in fact like resolutions, but they’re daily and necessary so that we can consider a different tomorrow. It is in these daily moments and reflections that we forge our lives, and the direction of where we go as well as keeping us in the moment.