Are you ready for an amazing 2025?
I’ve heard many quips already …
- 2025 …The year to thrive.
- Come alive in 2025!
- Put it in drive for 2025!
- Take a big dive into 2025!
- Time to arrive…in 2025!
- Find your jive in 2025!
- Let’s revive in 2025!
Regardless of your jingle…we have two choices for 2025…and every new year.
- We can take charge and create an extraordinary year…
- OR WE CAN DRIFT!
Michael Hyatt says it better than anyone else. If you don’t plan it, you’ll DRIFT…and likely end up in places that you would not have otherwise chosen.
This is the season where I begin my planning every year.
Because I REFUSE to drift!
I inquire of God, make my plans accordingly, find wisdom and direction in a multitude of counselors, invite God to direct my path, and set sail for another extraordinary year.
As we move forward let’s commit to not drifting and to not over thinking it.
Absolutely make plans.
But know that the plans ebb, flow, morph, flex as part of the bumps in the pursuit.
Here’s how best to channel the overwhelm and any murphy’s laws (that I personally DO NOT believe in) that show up … be determined … and stay surrendered!
I hope you will join me in planning an extraordinary year.
I’m not touting my process to be the ONLY way to do it, or even the BEST way to do it.
But I hope you will at least take some ideas to create your own way to design an extraordinary year.
Each year, I modify, make new distinctions, and enhance my method as the result of new insights, new research, and inner “knowing’s”.
I’ll be sharing my process over the next few weeks, hoping it will inspire you to PLAN and CREATE an extraordinary year …
And join me in my commitment to REFUSE to drift!
It’s during this season that I begin with the 3 things I’ll share with you this week.
Then I will build on it in weeks to come.
I’d love to do this journey…TOGETHER!
1. I carve out and dedicate time to doing this now, instead of waiting until holidays are in full swing.
About this time of year, we all seem to think we have ‘plenty of time’ to think about the new year.
And the next thing we know, we here in the USA are putting a turkey in the oven for Thanksgiving.
Then it’s time to get the Christmas tree decorated…and all of a sudden the ball drops in Time Square!
I LOVE going into the New Year knowing I have a plan that I’m excited about.
For me…that’s something to celebrate!
And…without a well pondered, prayerful plan, we’re more likely to default to New Year’s resolutions.
Consider this … what’s in your heart?
What is something you’ve always wanted to try?
For most, those resolutions are a few things we think about on New Year’s Eve.
We make promises to ourselves that this year will be different.
This year, we will actually…follow through.
Only to disappoint ourselves.
Again.
Don’t read this thinking:
- This year will be different
- This year I will follow through
- This year I mean it (whatever New Years resolutions pop into your mind)
I did that for far too many years.
A study conducted at Yale revealed that over 50% of Americans set some sort of New Year’s resolution, but less than 9% of those achieve them.
Here are some other results from research around “keeping New Years resolutions.”
- 23% of people have laid them aside within a week
- 64% abandon them after the first month
- 81% let them go by the second month.
- Strava, a fitness tracking app reported that most people quit the 2nd Friday in January (they call it ‘quitter’s day’)
Let’s not allow our lives to fall into one of those statistics.
Let’s be one of the 9%!
Don’t be discouraged by the stats … use them as fuel to know you’re not alone when you want to quit. At those moments, all you have is your determination … which is all you need to stay the course!
Let’s create our extraordinary 2025 NOW…and skip the New Years resolutions disappointment!
2. Make a list of at least 10 things for each month so far in 2024 that you have to be grateful for.
Gratitude is such a powerful thing. It transforms victimhood and survival mode to mind altering naturally produced brain chemicals…dopamine being the chief one!
And using the power of gratefulness to set our course for the year ahead is not only wise but gives us significantly more likelihood of actually seeing that extraordinary year come to fruition!
Here are just a few of the researched benefits of gratitude:
- Less stress
- Significant reduction in stress hormones
- Decreased depression
- Less anxiety
- Fewer mental health challenges
- Strengthened immune system
- Reduces toxic emotions
- Greatly increased quality of sleep
- More intimate connection in relationships
- Improved markers of cardiovascular health
- Increased chances of promotion
- Boosts efficiency
- Improves empathy
The ongoing practice of gratitude produces increased levels of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and other neurohormones that make us ‘feel good’.
When those ‘feel good’ hormones are in our system, we’re much more creative, have better strategic thinking, and are much more likely to follow through with decisions made in that state.
Commit now to a year of thanksgiving when plans falter and challenges occur…start today…this second…give thanks!
That alone is a POWERFUL reason to take the time to do this gratitude exercise before planning an extraordinary year.
Sit down with pen and paper, a computer, iPad, or cell phone.
Begin listing 10 things you’re grateful for in January 2024…do it!
Then 10 things you’re grateful for in February 2024…do it!.
All the way through October 2024…do it!
You don’t have to do them all in one setting.
But I make it my goal to do them all in a 72-hour time frame…
In order to get my neurohormones boosted like they’re on steroids.
Since I do this in October every year, I come away from the exercise with 100 things I’m grateful for from the previous year.
Don’t make this too difficult.
Be grateful for small things (the sunrise at the beach in June, the call from your son at college during his debate competition in February, etc).
As well as the big (major) things (getting the news your daughter was pregnant in February, birth of your first grandchild in October, etc.).
And even if there was a rough month, or maybe two…you can still find things to be grateful for.
The first time I did this exercise after the loss of my mother, I got to April, and I couldn’t imagine anything to be grateful for at first.
Of course, I was not grateful that she had passed away.
But I was grateful for all her friends who came from all over the country to honor her and give my sister and I their love and support.
I was grateful that Starla sang her song: “Beside Still Waters…”
Then it began to flow
Get started NOW!
So you’ll be overflowing with neurohormones that will lead you to great things in the extraordinary year you’ll be planning.
3. Make notes about who you want to be/become in 2025.
More important than what I contribute or accomplish each year is who I become in the process.
Robin Williams contributed great moments of laughter to many of our lives…but in the process he became a depressed man, void of the will to live.
That’s not a criticism of him, I just wish I had had the opportunity to sit with him and work him through his trauma before he’d become severely depressed and hopeless.
Who we become affects our destiny, as well as the lives of all of those who love us.
Commit to the discipline.
Let the discipline define your resoluteness.
Let your resoluteness craft your resolutions.
Pursue your resolutions and ready to face your challenges.
Face the challenges as they happen…not before they do.
Let’s set that compass to our true North before we ever even begin to plan what we desire to accomplish, achieve, or contribute.
At this time of year, I take time to pray, ponder, and do an honest inventory of how I could become more of all I was created to be.
For example, this year, I know that in working full time in my practice and launching my online business to impact the world of healing trauma (and the hundreds of thousands who’ve suffered from trauma) I’ve been less jovial, joyful, and jubilant than I desire to be.
I’ve spent time considering becoming more of those things in the upcoming year.
I’ll spend more time meditating on these realizations and adopt those things that I deeply desire to become down deep in my heart.
The ancient Proverb says, “A cheerful heart is good like medicine.”
I know what I feel called to contribute to the world of trauma healing will make a great difference.
But I certainly do not want to become a ‘zestless’ person in the process!
Spend some time with this.
If you accomplish great things but become someone you don’t desire to be in the process, that would be what a good Texas girls would call a “cryin’ shame’”
Perhaps Judas just desired to become rich’ (nothing wrong with that)…but becoming a betrayer to do so … cost him his sanity … everything!
Let’s take time to consider who we want to become…that will move us closer to all we were created to be.
*****
I hope you will join me in this process. Even if you modify it and personalize it to better suit you…please do NOT allow yourself to drift in 2025.
You can have an extraordinary year…and that’s my desire for you!
This does not have to be boring and tedious.
Make it an adventure.
I love what The Learning Space says about this:
“Have you ever asked yourself if you have a clear vision for your life and a plan to achieve it, or do you rely on the excitement of spontaneity and the unpredictability of hope? While some of us may have goals and dreams, often, a concrete plan to realize these aspirations is missing. Many perceive planning as monotonous or superfluous, preferring spontaneity, and flexibility. However, what if planning could actually lead to a more thrilling and fulfilling life?”
I truly believe this process can and WILL lead you to a more thrilling and fulfilling life!
I love the ancient writing by Jeremiah that says:
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope!”
And the Proverb…“Man devises his way, but God direct his steps.” You can know … God has your back every step of the way!
Let’s do this … TOGETHER!
