It's that time of the year where we are winding down the old year and looking toward the new year. A lot of us are contemplating what the new year will bring. Budgets, accomplishments, goals, and resolutions are being analyzed and discussed. Before we can move onto looking toward a new year and possibly setting goals and resolutions, I think it's important to first close out the old year. To spend some time reviewing and reflecting upon the year that has passed.
What is your process for concluding the year before setting forth your intention for the new year? In today's post I want to share with you some ideas on how to wrap up the year.
A process for reflecting and reviewing the year, that I love to use follows some basic tips that I learned from Marie Forleo. I've taken her suggestions and tweeked them a bit to my liking. I invite you to take some time for yourself and either sit in meditation, or sit with a pen and some paper, and reflect and review using this 3 step process.
1) What did I do, create, or experience this year that I'm really proud of? This can be in any area of your life. List out all of the accomplishments and experiences that you are proud of that happened this year. Work through month-by-month or pull out your calendar and take a look at the daily entries to help jog your memory. You may be surprised at how many you come up with.
2) What mistakes did I make and what did they teach me? What lessons did I learn that I can leverage from? What meaning was in those mistakes and lessons? Maybe it's something not concrete, like patience, or compassion, or forgiveness.
3) What am I willing to let go of? What old story do I want to rewrite and replace with a new story? An exercise I love that helps me to create the new story is to play the "imagine if" or "what if" game. When playing the "imagine if" and "what if" game there are no limitations, no rules, no restrictions, no logic. You get to freely create using your imagination what you would like the story to look like. No holes barred.
Once you've reflected and reviewed 2016 and brought it to a full and complete close, it's time to plan for the new year. I would suggest starting by going to your "imagine if" and/or "what if" envisioning exercise and write down the first small step that would need to be taken to move you in that direction. Make that first step one of your first intentions, goals or resolutions for the new year. If you already have in mind what the next step would be then jot that down as a second one. If you don't, then stop with the first intention and have faith that the next step will present itself along the way.
Do you have your own closing out the year process that you go through? What do you think about the 3 tips in this post? Would they be useful to you? I would love to hear your feedback. Please drop me a comment or send me an email.
What is your process for concluding the year before setting forth your intention for the new year? In today's post I want to share with you some ideas on how to wrap up the year.
A process for reflecting and reviewing the year, that I love to use follows some basic tips that I learned from Marie Forleo. I've taken her suggestions and tweeked them a bit to my liking. I invite you to take some time for yourself and either sit in meditation, or sit with a pen and some paper, and reflect and review using this 3 step process.
1) What did I do, create, or experience this year that I'm really proud of? This can be in any area of your life. List out all of the accomplishments and experiences that you are proud of that happened this year. Work through month-by-month or pull out your calendar and take a look at the daily entries to help jog your memory. You may be surprised at how many you come up with.
2) What mistakes did I make and what did they teach me? What lessons did I learn that I can leverage from? What meaning was in those mistakes and lessons? Maybe it's something not concrete, like patience, or compassion, or forgiveness.
3) What am I willing to let go of? What old story do I want to rewrite and replace with a new story? An exercise I love that helps me to create the new story is to play the "imagine if" or "what if" game. When playing the "imagine if" and "what if" game there are no limitations, no rules, no restrictions, no logic. You get to freely create using your imagination what you would like the story to look like. No holes barred.
Once you've reflected and reviewed 2016 and brought it to a full and complete close, it's time to plan for the new year. I would suggest starting by going to your "imagine if" and/or "what if" envisioning exercise and write down the first small step that would need to be taken to move you in that direction. Make that first step one of your first intentions, goals or resolutions for the new year. If you already have in mind what the next step would be then jot that down as a second one. If you don't, then stop with the first intention and have faith that the next step will present itself along the way.
Do you have your own closing out the year process that you go through? What do you think about the 3 tips in this post? Would they be useful to you? I would love to hear your feedback. Please drop me a comment or send me an email.
RSS Feed
