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Happy new year!
I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year
like I did. I have had a wonderful
couple of weeks balancing my love of teaching Pilates with spending cherished
time with my husband and children. We
managed to pack a lot of fun into the last few weeks around the extra shifts I
did and I am refreshed and ready to go for 2017.
It seems a bit weird talking about New Year now at the end
of January doesn’t it? I guess it feels
a bit more like New Year now for me though, and many others I’m guessing. Over the weekend it was the first New Moon of
the year, Chinese New Year, and the kids all go back to school this week. It signifies an end to summer holidays and
the beginning of getting back into a routine for the year.
Do you set New Years Resolutions each year? I’m not usually one to do it, and if I do it
is something trivial. I am also not
generally one to sit down and right out a list of goals, life plans or anything
like that. However, this year, things
have been a little different. I have
drawn inspiration from a number of sources including Danielle LaPorte’s Goals with Soul course, Hal Elrod’s Level 10 Life concept, and Amy Taylor-Kabbaz’s Mission Statement for 2017. What drew me to each of these (and other
similar ideas) was the focus on how I want to feel in my life. Rather than being a big list of things to do,
the idea is to challenge myself to move closer towards the Core Desired
Feelings in all that I do, and use those feelings as a guide for what I want to
do/achieve. I’ve spent a fair bit of
time thinking about how I want my life to be this year, and this is what I’ve
come up with:
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If I had to summarise how I would like my year
to be this year, these words come to mind- Energised, Intentional/on purpose,
nourish, action, intuition, sensual (as in living with all my five senses fully
alive), colourful, action, dream, learn, inspired, finish/complete, challenge,
reclaim, rise.
- ·
My Core Desired Feelings are Creative, Calm, Connected, and Divine
Feminine. Creative Calm Connected seem to be working really well for me
since I settled on them last year. But I
felt there was something else missing. I
feel like I’m at the beginning of a new cycle in life, and it turns out that some
people believe that 2017 is the beginning of a new nine year cycle. The past cycle for me was pretty much about
us having our family, and now that our little family is complete, I feel ready
to take on new challenges, to focus on new things (including of course spending
time with and raising our beautiful kids) and broadening my role. Now that I am a Mum I have felt the need to
slow down a little, become more childlike in some ways in that I want to be
more present in each and every moment.
And I also want to connect better with the softer, feminine side of who
I am. At the moment I am drawn to be
home, focussed on the children, spending time with those I am closely connected
with emotionally, and embracing my creative side. I’m less about the deadlines and career
ladder climbing, and more about nurturing.
Embracing the divine feminine for me is about allowing myself to be
softer, listening to my intuition, being creative, feeling beautiful, slowing
down, feeling joy and love.
- ·
I don’t want to feel just content with
life. I want to be energised and
thrilled by it. I want to wake up each
day and jump out of bed with excitement for what the day will bring.
- ·
I want to live more with intention. Making sure that I am making the most of
every minute, deciding how I will spend my time based on what my family and I
value most.
- ·
I want to tap into my intuition and allow it to
guide me and influence decisions more than just being logical and ruled by my
head. Getting more of a balance between
head and heart I suppose.
- ·
I have also decided that this is going to be the
year of the “challenge”. I seem to be
better able to manage habit change when there is a reason for the change, e.g. a
30 day challenge. So, this year I am
going to have a go at a few and see if I can kick start some good change. The first one is the 30 Days Of You Challenge
that I started last Thursday, which is focusing on the mind, body and spirit
and getting us focused and prepared for the year ahead. I will write about
other challenges as they come up, but some ideas I’ve come across and am
interested in are
o
The Modern Mrs Darcy 2017 Reading Challenge - there are actually two challenges to choose from – one if you want to be reading
for fun, and one for reading for growth, or you could do both. I plan to do both over the course of the
year. The idea is you pick books based
on a number of categories within the challenge.
This idea is appealing to me because I have felt stuck in a bit of a
reading rut lately, always picking the same type of books. Hopefully this challenge will inspire some
diversity in my reading.
o
Hal Elrod’s 30 Day Miracle Morning Challenge – Based
on the principles outlined in The Miracle
Morning, the 30 day challenge could be a great way for me to kick start some
positive morning routines.
o
An alcohol free month – eg dry July/Octsober
- ·
I have been inspired by a couple of quotes
lately from podcasts lately and I thought they could almost be like little
motto's or mantras for me this year:
o
The first one was Danielle LaPorte in a podcast
I listened featuring her and she was discussing the importance of saying no to
others so that you have room to say yes to yourself and what you
want/need. She said to listen to your
instincts when someone asks you to go somewhere/do something. “If it’s not a HELL YES¸ then it’s a no.”
o
The other one is from Gretchen Rubin’s podcast, HappJhHappier HApppHHHHhhhhahahHHapppier Happier, where she said a recent
philosophy of hers is “if you cant get
out of it, get into it”. The idea being, if there is something that you have to do, but are not really wanting to, it will probably be better for you and all involved if you just let go and decide to really make the most of it. I like this idea. A change in your attitude to something is sometimes all you need to make it much more enjoyable.
I would love to hear from you about your
resolutions/goals/plans for the year. Did you make any new years resolutions? How are you going with them so far? Do
you have any ideas for other challenges I should undertake? Would you like to do any of the challenges
with me? I would love to hear your
thoughts so make sure you comment below.
Until next time,
E xx
Labels: Calm, Connected, Core Desired Feelings, Creative, New Year
