And then all of a sudden, it's over.
It's December 30th today. I can take a deep breath and exhale and put on the comfiest of clothes. Ahhhh. Yes!
Now that Christmas is behind me, I am enjoying and embracing one of my most favourite times of the year. I savour the days between Boxing Day and New Year's Day. I just love them. They're a chance to unwind and reflect on the past twelve months and a chance to dream about the next twelve months. An opportunity to set fresh goals and dream new dreams...
A brand new year. A fresh slate. A new beginning, full of hope and possibility.
But before I can embrace the new, I always feel the need to reflect on and let go of the past year.
But before I can embrace the new, I always feel the need to reflect on and let go of the past year.
On the board of Elders of which I am a part, we spend the morning of December 31st together reflecting on the past twelve months and then dreaming about the year to come and setting goals and casting vision. Hands down it is my most favourite meeting of the whole year. I just love the space to have these kinds of conversations.
On our board, one of the many tools we use for our personal yearly evaluation is the Start - Stop - Sustain. I've become quite familiar with this tool because we also use it at Summit Team Building where I work from time to time as a facilitator when we debrief a team building challenge.
Start - what do I want start doing?
Stop - what do i want to stop doing?
Sustain - what do I want to keep doing?
The Start - Stop - Sustain tool can be applied to all areas of life: relationships, health, finances, spiritual growth and so on.
I have friends, who together with their family choose a family word each year to summarize their hopes and dreams for the year. One year their word was YES. Isn't that great? I have other friends who choose personal words for the year. You can read more about that idea here.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
Pause and imagine your life 365 days from now. Picture what you would want it to look like. Now imagine what it would take for that to become real. What steps do you need to take for that picture to become a reality?
The one piece of advice I would give (I've learned this the hard way) is to make goals super manageable, practical and bite size. Remember something is better than nothing :)
Last year was full of many highs and lows. Joys and disappointments. I'm grateful for all of them. And I'm sensing and believing great things for 2015. Happy New Year :)
