For me, the end of the year is less a time of reflection, and more a time for planning out the future. I’m very future oriented. While I believe in keeping an eye on the past, especially to avoid past mistakes, I always–every since I was a little girl–was looking toward the future.
Now, I never make ‘resolutions’…but I make plans and set goals.
I always start by sitting down with a bunch of my planners and start thinking about what I want to accomplish in the next year. Every single year, I plan more than I can manage, but that’s just who I am. If I can accomplish 2/3 of what I plan, I’m relatively happy.
I think about how I want my career to advance, and ways to bring that about. I ‘futurecast’ as my coach calls it, casting ahead to see what trends and events I can envision, and then I start planning out my strategies.
I’m constantly thinking about ways to optimize my work and business, but I also think about what I want to accomplish on a health-level. Some years are harder than others, but when I really put my mind to it, I tend to make headway. I try not to attach myself to a ‘hard’ outcome, because with chronic illnesses, you can’t fully plan things out. There are always bad days that interfere, and some days it’s hard to even stumble through the day.
I have several chronic conditions to contend with, as does my husband, so health matters in our house.
And one other thing I do each year, is to write a ‘future interview’ with myself about the coming year, as if it’s already happened. It’s a form of a written vision board. I also make treasure maps–vision boards–for the new year, and I do an indepth tarot reading for the year. Since my birthday is in January–the 17th–I also correlate my astrology chart (my BFF is my astrologer and always makes me a year’s chart for my birthday present) with the tarot reading, and I adjust things in my plans for the year based on what some of the predictions speculate.
Anyway, what do you do for the new year? Do you make new plans, goals? Do you set resolutions? Tell us in the comments!