The air feels renewed and carries with it an optimistic energy full of forward momentum.
The fresh start of any new year brings with it loads of expansive possibilities that reinvigorate our determination and ambition. We all feel more present, more confident, and more committed to our betterment.
However, this momentum, coupled with the cyclic aspirations declared every New Year is difficult to sustain. While all this new inspiration and resolve is great, lasting change will only come if we harness the energy of the New Year and apply it accurately.
Reflecting on how you want to live your life is a great way to start. I highly encourage you to ask yourself a set of powerful questions that are meaningful to you. These questions will provide context for expressing your ambitions, intentions, and, most importantly, your purpose.
As I set up how I would navigate my new year, I reflected on these three key questions:
1. What will you give yourself permission to do that you have historically eschewed?
A more inciting question, what is your relationship to joy? Tune into the enjoyments you usually put off or never have time for. Whether that's Watching the wind move through the trees, dancing, picking up a book unrelated to our work lives, or something entirely different. Discovering and uncovering those little enjoyments and prioritizing your own joy may reveal the things that give you purpose in life.
2. What are your greatest ambitions this year, and how will you accomplish them?
The New Year traditionally brings reflection and a loose outline of what we intend to accomplish during the next 365 days. However, most people need a more structured strategy to maintain the momentum characterized by the energy of the New Year. While you are still in this period of planning, abandon your limiting beliefs and restrictive mind, and outline a detailed, year-long timeline of incremental steps and consistent habits that will help you achieve your greatest ambitions.
3. How will you keep yourself accountable and redirect if off course?
We all know how often people fail to sustain their resolutions as the freshness of the New Year withers. It is easy to be mindful of impending apathy when our motivation stagnates, but it is not as easy to know how to stop it once it encroaches. Consider how you can keep yourself and your peers revitalized and committed to the aims we believe ourselves worthy of accomplishing at the turn of the new year.
My hope is that you use these tips to live with positivity, inspiration, laughter, and love. I wish you luck as you seek to sustain this state of new year bliss.