Christmas is gone and New Year is over. Resolutions have been made, lost, forgotten and denied. It’s time to get real. You can create a new you in this new year. The choices you make will determine where you will be this time next year and if you don’t love your life now then it is time to make the choices that will take you to a life that you will love. New year equals new you – if you choose to let it.
Holiday time is over people, it’s time to get to work on YOU!
Christmas Chaos is so last year! New Year’s was fun, exhausting, overwhelming, hyped, too loud, too quiet, too (insert your own words here) but now it’s time to take stock of where you are now and where you want to be in 12 months. This is the scary bit so hold on!
Repeat after me …
I am allowed my dreams and I give myself permission to follow them.
How did that feel? Don’t you tell me that you don’t have dreams for yourself or your future! Everyone has at least one dream; loose weight, gain weight, get rich preferably quick (not going to happen by the way unless you follow your plan), own your own home, be your own boss and on and on. There is a dream for everyone and everyone’s dream is different, and that is OK, in fact it is more than OK it is fabulous. Own your dream and make this year the year you choose to make it real. Remember New Year: New You.
Where to start?
It’s all very well to say “I have a dream” – thank you Reverend King, but that will not get you where you want to be (remember New Year: New You). You need a plan so that your dream can become a goal and then a reality. A goal can be achieved by following a plan and a plan needs for you to make a choice or more correctly lots of choices and that can be scary. What if I choose wrong? What could happen to me? Well, no choice is a ‘wrong’ choice unless it puts you in danger and those choices should (hopefully) be fairly obvious and you should be able to make the right choice for you.
Choices are all about how badly you want something, even something that may not be ‘good’ for you: alcohol, drugs, food, people and the list goes on. You need to learn about the risk and the benefit of the choice you make. What can you loose versus what can you gain. Which choice is going to lead to the path towards your dream/goal. Make that choice towards a new you and follow through by showing up for your dream/goal. No one will or can do it for you.
Do not leave choices about you and your life to someone else no matter how well meaning. Their choice for you will always be coloured by their own desires and needs and may not be in your best interests. I know – shocker!
When we were children decisions (choices) were made for us by our parents / caregivers, hopefully in our best interest but we are all big people now folks and it is time to front up to life and choose to create a life you love.
New Year:New You
So tell me, what does your dream or dream life look like? What can you do today to take just one step in the direction that supports that dream? Don’t panic – no dream/goal is too big. You may need to break it down into easy steps and just work on one thing at a time. Remember that old question about how to eat an elephant: one bite at a time! That is exactly what you may need to do to achieve your dream/goal. One step at a time – and stay away from elephants!
Go grab yourself a piece of paper or your journal or planner and start writing down everything that you believe is a part of your dream/goal. Don’t make judgments just get it all down. Don’t worry if this feels weird or silly, I promise it will make sense. Have you done that? Great. Now make another list of all the things that you don’t want to be a part of your New You.
Now that you have your two lists and a clearer understanding of your dream/goal start looking at the things you have written down and see where they fit in your life right now. Do you already have some of the positive things happening in your life or are you overwhelmed by the negatives? As you look at your list feel the emotions that the things on your list make you feel. Is it happy, positive, good or sad, unhappy and makes you feel bad about yourself?
Are some or all of them currently affecting your life; are they helping you to move forward towards your dream/goal (yay) or are they keeping you in the same place (boo).
I bet you know where this is going, right? Do more of what makes you happy (the good, positive, progressive stuff that is leading you towards your dream/goal) and less of the stuff that is not helping you. I know that this is not as easy to do as it is to say, and I know that life (read “other people”) can get in the way of your dream/goal but that too is a choice and one only you can make.
Like they say on the airplane: take care of yourself before you try to take care of the people travelling with you. We are all travelers in this life, know your destination and make conscious choices every day to take you there.
Create a life you love one choice at a time: Life by Design.
Next up: goal setting
