Lessons from 2017

I'm not entirely sure when I started using planners. It's been at least since high school, but it's possible I had one before then and just don't remember. For the last 4 years, I have used a Passion Planner, and they are hands down my favorite. I love the monthly and weekly layouts that help you create focal points for the days ahead, and provide you with inspirational quotes to motivate you. I love the Passion Roadmap at the start of every planner that encourages you to put your big dreams to paper and then create a plan for realizing them. But my favorite part of the planner has to be the monthly, mid-year and end-of-year reflections. 

I thought I would share a bit of my 2017 end of year reflection with you. 

 

What were your three biggest lessons you learned this past year? What is one way to incorporate these lessons into your life?

1. Everything will happen in its own time. Be patient. Be mindful. Don't rush good talent.

2. Allowing yourself to be seen is tantamount to living an authentic life. Show up as yourself. Always. All ways. 

3. Words have power. Words become thoughts. Thoughts become actions. And all of these make your life. Be careful with how you talk to yourself and what you put out into the universe. 

 

Name three things you can improve on next year. What are concrete actions you can take to work toward these improvements?

1. Embrace abundance. The life you want is yours. Continue working for it. Open your arms, your mind, your heart, your spirit to that life. Claim it.

2. Patience. Everything will happen in its own time. Just keep showing up.

3. Be yourself. Show up as you are, not as you think people would like you to be.  

What lessons are you bringing with you into the new year? What are you working to improve?

Liberated Lines - Day Three

Sit down. Cross one leg over the other. Close Eyelids. Breathe. Breathe Deep. 

I chase away the to do lists that quicken my heartbeat and disrupt the pattern of my respirations. My mind is resistant to wander. It tiptoes into the space for dreaming, and it is several breaths before it is comfortable there. But then it happens. I see the life I only ever talk about in fragments, always afraid to lay it all out at any one time, in any one place lest it seem too ambitious, in case by speaking it, I somehow manage to jinx it, or spook it, or otherwise keep it from being. I see it all there in bold, vibrant colors. I can feel what it is like to inhabit my body in that place of fulfillment and peace and wonder, and it is brilliant. My body vibrates with excitement and I somehow know that I truly can have all of this if only I would dream with my eyes open. 

Give Dreams A Chance

A Couple years ago, I heard this amazing commencement speech that Jim Carrey gave at Maharishi University of Management, and I listen to it every so often when I'm having one of those moments where I'm second guessing my decision to pursue the life of my dreams. In my favorite part of the speech, Carrey talks about his father. He talks about how his dad held down a job that he didn't have a passion for, for most of his life, and then one day he was let go. Carrey said the lesson he took from that was, "you can fail at something you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on something you love."

We come up with so many reasons why we can't even try to go after our dreams. We tell ourselves it's not the right time, we tell ourselves it's too risky. We come up with reasons why we will fail where others have succeeded. We stack all of these things up in front of ourselves as proof that our dreams are not worth the gamble, but they are.

We can not know what we are truly capable of if we don't try. We can not know what could have come of our dreams if we don't live them. We can not have the life we've always wanted doing the same things we've always done.

This is not to say it won't be hard -- because it will. This is not to say it won't take time -- because it may take a while. But when you come out on the other side and your life reflects your dreams and passions -- when you look around at the culmination of all of your hard work and perseverance, won't that be worth it?

You will never know what your life could have been if you don't take that first step and give your dreams a chance.

What Dreams May Come

This year did not turn out the way I expected. Who I was at the beginning of this year is not who I am now. 

I feel like I have been altered on a soul deep level. 

There are few similarities between the life I projected out into the future this time last year, and the one I am currently living. 

A lot of this has to do with my love of research and planning. I like to see the road out ahead of me and anticipate what's coming. When I commit to something I read up on the subject at length and create whole files dedicated to ensuring that I am prepared for all potential outcomes, but that's just not realistic. That's not how life works. 

There is no way for me to foresee everything that lies ahead. It is not possible for me to plan for all of life's circumstances, and these are truths that I have been working through and am still in the process of making my peace with. Doing this has required that I stop micromanaging myself.

Everything in life does not need to come attached to a deadline. 

There have been (and I am sure will be) many times when I get so caught up in the end game that I forget to enjoy the process of creation. Milestones are wonderful and should be celebrated, but the milestones are the highlight reel. All that stuff in between: the struggle, the hard work, the tears, the determination, the good days, the bad days, is what make the wins so sweet, because you know all you did to get there. 

My 2015 was a very goal-driven year, and there is nothing wrong with that. It taught be a great deal. But I want to try something different in the year to come. 

2016 will be a journey-driven year. 

A year to fall in love with creating again, and a year to give my head a break, so that I can listen with my heart for a little while.