2023 doesn’t have to be your best year
It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
The most overwhelming, too!
As the Christmas magic seems to fade away, we are left with one more exciting event before we dive again into the daily hassle: New Year’s Eve.
It’s a time most of us use for reflection and for setting intentions. We make commitments and promises, most of the times with a hefty amount of doubt that we will ever be able to achieve them.
And always, always the pressure is on for us to radically change in the next year. We start new resolutions. We turn the page — “new year, new me”.
A lot of this is actually an exercise in deception — smoke and mirrors, a new opportunity to get high on the fun part of personal development, and ignoring some of the less exciting, but definitely impactful elements of inner work.
As a coach, I cherish any occasion to get intentional and energised about our becoming.
I love New Year’s resolutions
and
I think we need to strip away some of the misunderstandings around it.
Our becoming, our process of knowing ourselves and achieving our goals has ebb and flow — it has stages of creation and ideation, stages of discovery and change, stages of implementation and daily practices, stages of falling out of our rhythm — stages of fall, of struggle, of rest and recovery.
Just because the year ends, it doesn’t mean our current process of change ends. It doesn’t mean we need to start over with a fun, bombastic resolution.
We can start the New Year being “in between” — not fitting into our current life decisions, but also not really aware of where should we go next.
We can start the New Year being on the path — and just needing to further chip away at the work we have already started.
We can be confused — and aim to give us time and opportunities to clarify what we really want.
We can be struggling, sad, anxious, burned out — and aim to soothe our nervous system and get our balance back.
So with this New Year’s resolution, my invitation for you is to reflect on where you are in your life and in your process of growth.
What do you need?
Do you need a fresh start?
Do you need direction?
Do you need a goal that will energise you? Or, perhaps, you need to readjust your speed and move slower?
Do you need to create and exert energy? Or withdraw and replenish your forces?
Is it time for a “what” goal — about something you do, or a “how” goal — about how you show up in your life?
Is there a difference between what you want from next year and what you actually need?
With awareness of all these possibilities for New Year, I hope you give yourself a moment of silence to check in and listen for the answers to these questions.
Listen to everything your inner self wants to tell you — there is no one else more equipped to know what your next step could be.
Here’s to a New Year that will give us what we most need!
