The past few days, I’ve been thinking about how we can enhance our family’s “reflection rituals” for New Year’s Eve.  In the past, we’ve done vision boards at our dining room table, each equipped with magazines, poster board, scissors and glue. We play music we love, we chat, and we enjoy the creation process.  Additions for this year are:  reading through all the messages of thanks from 2017 from our gratitude jar (shown below), and answering a new series of questions I created as we exit 2017 and welcome in 2018’s peaceful energy.

If you’re tired of making resolutions and not following through, join me in reflective ritual by asking yourself the questions below. (If you need to pull your 2017 calendar off your wall, or look in your phone’s calendar to recall how you spent your time, by all means, do it!)  Pour a cup of tea, light some candles, put on some quiet music and enter 2018 with awareness around our choices.  (Here’s just one of my favorite CD’s for reflection):  The Essential Snatam Kaur: Sacred Chants.

Grab a journal, or some paper and answer these reflective questions:

1. What worked in 2017? What didn’t?  Make a list.
2. What do you want more of in 2018? What do you want less of?  Make a list.
3. What activities did you do, what actions did you take, or what choices did you make that drained you, leaving you feeling depleted?   Write them down.
4. Which activities or actions lit you up, excited you, leaving you feeling inspired, motivated and unstoppable?
5. Looking at your list for what excited you, what’s the common theme or feeling that’s present?  Next to each activity, just make a note of the feeling that was present from doing that activity.  Was it happiness? Confidence? Freedom?  Look for the most common theme for 2017.  Choose the feeling that’s the strongest from your list. This is what you want to create more of in 2018.
   
6. Knowing that in order to feel those feelings, there’s likely an action you’ll need to take or a structure you’ll need in place in order to feel inspired and create change.  What’s one thing you could do this week, and potentially continue, so you could feel those feelings now, instead of in the future?
7. Lastly, what kind of support do you need in place to accomplish this? Is there something you need to let go of?  Something you need to add?  Someone you need to help hold you accountable?

My hope is these questions bring you closer to your dreams for 2018!   If you’d like a list of feelings to help you tap into your desires, you can find that here.  If you liked this exercise and would like some deeper introspection, I’ve included a PDF of Debbie Ford’s, “A New Year’s Ritual here.

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I’d love to hear if this helped you.  What did you love?  What did you resist?  What are you creating more of (or taking away) as a result of doing this exercise?

Sending you wishes for a powerful and healthy 2018!

Chris

xo