Anyone else get all the fuzzy feels for a new year?
New possibilities, clean slates, all the time in the world … it all feels so good to my soul.
One of my most favorite things to do at the end of the year is look back through all my pictures of the year (which is … a lot) and see all the good that happened over the past twelve months. There’s usually some hard hidden behind the smiles in different pictures as well, and I can pick it out in the photos and remember what I was thinking in that very moment. It helps me to reflect on the year- what I’m grateful for, where I grew, where I was timid and didn’t go full out, what I accomplished, what I overcame … all the things.
I wanted to give you a guide to help you walk through the same … just some simple questions that will allow you to do two things if you want to reflect on 2019 with me- Assess and Act. I think you’re going to like it.
What I’ve found is that sometimes I have roadblocks and aversions to growth and I’m not sure why. So I just dance around it. But if I can press in and process through, it starts to make sense why I have hang ups and how I can overcome them. And usually, it’s not as hard as I was making it out to be.
Let me break down the two worksheets to help you with the exercise.
1. Bring to Light. My wise friend Becky Page will frequently say “Awareness Brings Change.” If you want things to be different (or maybe want MORE of what you have), then rewind the tapes and see how you got to where you are now. So you’re going to bring it to light. This worksheet will help you to bring awareness to different parts of your year so you can assess and see what steps got you to where you are now. I encourage you to take a few days to go through these. Sit them next to where you have coffee in the morning or next to where you look at your phone at night. Maybe even pull out a journal and write though the different prompts. Sit in them and see how different responses may change as you let them marinate in your brain a couple days. I am always so intrigued to get honest with myself and answer questions like these … it shines high beams on areas I may have subconsciously stepped over or purposely avoided. And I know that’s how I grow.
2. Bring to Action. Once you have that awareness, decide what you want to do about it. Maybe nothing- sure, that’s always an option. But you may say, “you know what, I want things to be different in 2020.” And that’s going to require some different actions. This second worksheet will help you identify and prioritize the different steps to help you achieve the vision you’re setting for your year ahead. Think of it as finding a recipe: you know you want to bake your family a chocolate cake for dinner, but you need to identify the ingredients and instructions to make sure it comes out of the oven just as you want it.
So let’s do this: print off these worksheets, work through them and see what the exercise reveals. It’s a great opportunity to celebrate your wins, grieve the losses, and cast a vision for what you want 2020 to be.
Excited to see you grow!