I used to make New Year’s Resolutions. Then I used to spend December reflecting and consolidating the year gone, ready to plan “thorough goals” for the new year. Then I stepped back, and chose a “Word for the Year” instead. Finally, I used a guiding word to ‘theme’ my goals for the year, broken into sections.
But equally, I see all this “Forget the new year, it’s meaningless.”
So I’m beginning this post with a disclaimer.
You do not need to wait for New Year’s Day to have a fresh start.
If you find the buzz and shared support of the community starting all together helpful, Go For It.
There is no “right way” or “wrong way” to make change.
And telling other people what will or won’t work for them doesn’t benefit anyone.
Right. Now we’re clear on that.
My Revelation
In 2011, I chose the word “Strength” to guide my year. By February, I had split this into 3 categories: Sprint/Mind, Energy/Diet and Exercise/Physical. But what made this year the most powerful for me in terms of the results, wasn’t in what I achieved. It was about the motivation to carry the word with me throughout the year.
So many statistics talk about how many people give up on resolutions by the end of January. But I reviewed Strength every single month, and somehow, managed to do *something* for each category each month.
How To Stay Motivated
This is not a new concept, but until I’d seen it work in my life, I didn’t really take the idea on board. It’s something that threads all the way through Danielle LaPorte‘s Firestarter Sessions and Desire Map [Affiliated], it’s an underlying theme of creating a vision board, or using the law of attraction and visualisation.
For many of us, motivation is not driven by an end goal of accomplishment, but rather a sense of being: an experience of feeling.
Inspiration Leads to Desire
Without bringing the tone of this post down, I grew up in an environment which primed me to fear being weak.At the beginning of 2011, I wrote out a little paragraph about why I’d chosen Strength as my word.
So in a way, this had a deep underlying factor. I wanted to be a “skilled, strong woman. To have the knowledge and ability to heal, teach and advise. I want to train my mind-body connection.”
Even reading that back, I get slight chills.
I thought back to the heroes of my childhood: Piper Halliwell, Xena the Warrior Princess, the Amazon Myrina from Theresa Tomlinson’s series. I am called toward my ‘personal quest’ of being the advisor; the medicine woman; the teacher and guide.
I’ve talked before about building a strong motivation for change, and this is where I really learned that lesson first-hand.
It’s Okay to Not Know Everything
If aiming for a set accomplishment or goal doesn’t work for you, or if you don’t KNOW where you want to b at the of end of 2018, this might be something to try:
Find the core desired feeling or value you want to have.
One of my clients spoke about wanting to map her potential, but not knowing which direction was right, and not knowing how the destination might look. So we spent a session focused on the values that had guided her to now, and how she wanted to feel in the coming months.
When I look at 2018, I’m focused on the ‘attributes’ I admire. On the values I really… well, value. I focus on how I want to feel.
For now, I’m just reflecting on this year, reminding myself of these motivations, and giving myself space to wonder where 2018 could lead. Focused on the possibilities of how I could experience it.
Things To Do Next…
- Explore more simple posts on the articles page.
- Find out about reinventing yourself from a place of stability.
- Hop on my mailing list to move forward in your reinvention.
- Follow me and my pets over at Instagram.