I love waking up on January 1st.
A new year is magical. It’s a clean slate, a fresh beginning, as though you have permission to shed what doesn’t suit you anymore. Permission to start new projects, leaving the old behind and unfinished. Permission to become a new person, with no regard for who you were on the last day of the last year.
It’s like being born again. Take advantage of your birth, and begin to grow.
What are you going to change this year? What will you erase from the slate and rewrite?
Make a list of at least five things you can change before the next January 1. Write down ways you can facilitate each change. Check in with your list throughout the year – monthly, quarterly, whatever works for you – to see your progress. Remind yourself over and over of the magic of this time of year, and keep moving toward who you want to be and how you want to feel.
Feel free to shift your list as you see necessary. Maybe one of your items will not pan out like you’d hoped. Changed it a bit so it suits you. This is not a static list of goals to achieve for the year. This list is alive, just like you, and we are always changing. Let your list change, too.
Don’t make resolutions. They set you up for failure when you can’t keep up with them after a few weeks. (Haven’t we all been there?) Unfulfilled resolutions kill your self-esteem, and that’s not our purpose here. We need to be doing things that lift us up and make us feel good and worthy.
Here are a few of my rewrites for 2011.
> Erase: Work. I put my real estate license on Inactive status, so my time and energy are freed up for new work ventures. Rewrite: I have already ramped up my writing and am freelancing more. If I can get a book written this winter, I’ll feel blessed.
> Erase: People. Shed relationships that don’t make me feel good. Rewrite: Spend more time with people who are kind and supportive, who nudge me to be my best, pushing me past what I think are my creative limits.
> Erase: Wasted time. I’m an information junkie, so I am online skimming the internet whenever possible. Rewrite: Read more books. I want to get back into reading books. I love to read the books my daughters have to read for school. They are usually classics (The Once and Future King, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc), but sometimes the girls come home with environmental non-fiction like Plan B 4.0 and The World Without Us.
> Erase: Current house. I’ve been trying to sell the house to downsize. I have no control over this, but if I did and could… Rewrite: …I would have a new kind of freedom and another slate to fill
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Nan,
I love your viewpoint on the start of a new year and using our journal to rewrite our life! What an energized, positive point of view and wonderful start to a new year, new life! I appreciate the examples you give of how to do a rewrite. It’s amazing how our perspective can change when it’s positive; and a great way for our journals to be a source of inspiration toward positive change. :)
I have chosen your post, Happy New Year!, for the first #JournalChat Pick of the Day for 2011, for 1/3/10, for all things journaling on Twitter. :) I will post a link on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and my blog, Refresh with Dawn Herring.
#JournalChat is for all things journaling on Twitter through my @JournalChat account. :)
Thanks again for such an inspiring, positive way to use our journals!
Be refreshed,
Dawn Herring
JournalWriter Freelance
@JournalChat on Twitter
Thanks, Dawn! I just write from the heart about what I do to take care of myself. I appreciate your interest and sharing. :)
Thanks for the nice blog. I enjoy your writing.
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