New Year’s Reflection and Dreams exercise

Many of us enjoy creating New Year’s resolutions for ourselves and I think those can be valuable as long as we make them inspirations and wants and not yet more “shoulds” and “musts.” Like “I should exercise more” or “I should eat healthier.”

Just before the start of 2016, I did a reflectioning and visioning exercise and in the past few days, I’ve been reviewing it and working on a new one for 2017. My theme for 2016 was “freedom” and I judge I achieved it well: I gave up a job and turned to my dream of leading people in workshops, coaching and therapy full-time. I also experienced freedom with my partner, my son and others in my life.

I want to share the questions I answered in my New Year’s Reflection and Dreams exercise in hopes that you may get inspired.

Reflecting
– What kind of feelings or thoughts arise in me when I think of last year?
– What did I learn and how did I grow?
– What I am grateful for?
– What do I want to take with me into this new year? What do I want to leave behind?

Getting ready!
– How do I ensure I have time and energy to pursue my dreams?
– How do I sabotage myself when I don’t pursue what I want? How will I tackle that?
– What needs to happen so that I’ll trust my dreams will come true?

Dreams – what I want for 2017
– What do I want for this year?
– How do I want to grow and what do I want to learn?
– What values do I want to live by? How do I greet this year?
– What is this year’s theme (if any)?
– What is the first step towards my dream? And when will I take it?

When pondering those questions, if I wasn’t sure about my answer, I paused and checked the sensations in my body, checking what really felt true to me. After I had answered those questions in writing, I went back and underlined the key words and/or sentences and added comments. For example, in addition to what I had wished for the year, I had added: “Dance! Fun! Love!” For values, I highlighted the words Honesty, Caring and Love.