[New Year #2] Nurturing what's already growing

Welcome to step 2 of "Planting Your New Year".

Yesterday we pulled out the weeds - all the stuff that doesn't serve us anymore, and which we want to leave behind in 2017.

Then we all went to celebrate New Years - wherever we were :) I hope you had a good time!

I spent last night at the beach with thousands of others and lots of fireworks.

(I only noticed the state of my "beach wear" this morning in the light...)

Happy New Year!

So today we're looking at the good stuff: all the things that are worth celebrating and doing more of in the new year.

What you give your attention to, grows...

Now is the time to stop and pat ourselves on the back. Most of us hardly ever do that. We just keep hustling on and completely miss our milestones.

So I sat down this morning to ask myself these questions, and I invite you to do the same:

• What did I accomplish in the past year? (Don't look only at things that you did or acquired. Doing and having are only a small part of the category "accomplishments". Being is the most important part. Have you managed to become/be [more visible, strong, forgiving, trusting, loving; less judgmental, afraid, worried, etc.])?
• What are one or two major things that stood out as particularly amazing? (Why? What did you do differently, or how were you being different in those situations? [Identify this, so you know what you want to do/be more of in the new year.])
• What did I learn about myself? (Note here all the things you didn't know you were capable of.)
• What are my personal values?

That last question is a really important one.

Our values are what drives us in life.

When they are not met, we become unhappy or get burned out. Look at your answers above and also look at yesterday's list again, in order to find out what your values are.

My most important value in life is freedom, for example. Every decision I take in my business and life is consciously or unconsciously based on how much freedom it will give me.

When you find out what your core values are (it may be a longer process since most of this is unconscious) you will notice why you weren't happy in a certain relationship, why you had to leave a certain job, why you are "the different one" in your family, etc. etc. A number of things will become clear to you and it will give you clarity on what to pursue from now on.

I might write a separate post on how to figure out your values. If you've read yesterday's post, where I mentioned I'm going to let a few "friends" go, it's because I realized that none of my friendship-values (honesty, stability, loyalty, reliability) were met in those friendships. So they basically are no friendships. I need to let those friends go, so I can make space for new friendships who do meet my values.

To be continued tomorrow

Okay, so now we've pulled out the weeds in Step #1, and we identified the healthy saplings we want to keep on growing in Step #2.

In Step #3 we will put it all together and create a sort of compass for this year. We all know how easy it is to forget our New Year's Resolutions by January 2. Taking this time for introspection will give us a way more solid foundation, to actually follow through on what we want to create this year.

I'm off to the next fireworks now - see you tomorrow! :)