“We are meant to walk to
walk in bigger worlds. We are meant to
express our love and our gifts so that we become even fuller with love and
capacity…we are more magical than we know.” Tama Kieves, author , This Time I Dance
So
here we are facing 2014.
How are you feeling about it? Are
you excited and happy, full of positive expectations? Did you buy your 2014 planner months ago and
are you eager to get new things underway?
Or are you uneasy, a bit worn out and frazzled by the thought of a new
year?
Either
way, it can be useful to consider how our perspective on the new year (and on life
in general) is a function of four
elements: our sense of proportion, our
ability to be objective, how well we are able to hold a broad world view, and our
internal skill of trusting what we know.
These four elements can be the doorway to a new
perspective and can herald a year in which you are continuously experiencing
your “teachable moments” that keep you engaged and growing toward
your best self. Here’s some questions in each element that can help you change your perspective and go from feeling disconcerted to
being optimistic about 2014:
YOUR
SENSE OF PROPORTION
1. When you look at the New Year
through a Big Picture lens things naturally tend to fall into balance because
you are better able to see the relative importance of parts of your life, such as your family and love relationships, your health, and your spiritual
well being, for example. Questions that
serve the sense of proportion include:
- “What have previous years taught me about starting
the New Year in a positive way and then continuing to hold myself accountable
during the year?” - “What is the biggest opportunity I face in 2014 and how
can my actions move me toward my destiny?” - “If I believe I am the master of
my fate, what can I do each day to move myself continuously toward my life
goals?”
YOUR
ABILITY TO BE OBJECTIVE
2. When you allow your
rational, logical and linear thinking mind to look at the coming New Year, that
can help bring in an objective perspective. Questions include :
- “How important is the New Year in the overall
scheme of things, and when I look back at it in ten years what will I remember
were its most important parts?” - “What may be going on in other areas of my
life right now that makes me feel pressured about the coming year?” - “What
am I grateful for that’s going well in my life now – and how is this
a gift for the coming year?”
YOUR ABILITY TO HOLD A BROAD
WORLD VIEW
By taking a comprehensive
look at the New Year, you can consider it from a variety of different
perspectives through such questions as:
- “What does the New Year look like to my
boss? My spouse? My parents? My kids? My favorite authors and political
figures?” - “What, if anything, can I control in this coming year and what is
beyond my sphere of influence?” - “If I had unlimited resources and couldn’t make
a mistake, how would that alter my actions and decisions in 2014?”
KNOWING
WHAT YOU KNOW
4. Self-awareness is an
important key to facing a new year with a fresh and positive perspective. Knowing yourself allows you to be flexible,
make choices that feed your soul, and avoid previous pitfalls. Questions that draw upon your self-awareness
include:
- “What mindset would give me a healthy relationship to the challenges I
may face in this coming year – that would not be boring, yet also would not be
overwhelming, so that I could grow and thrive?” - “When I trust in myself,
and in a collaborative Universe, what becomes possible for me in the next 12
months?” - “If I were going to live
in 2014 dedicated to making my life better, what would that look like? What
would I choose to start doing, keep doing, and stop doing?”
Each
year, millions of Americans make New Years’ Resolutions with the intention to
lose weight, make more money, be a nicer person and so on; by the end of
January many have already reduced, or completely abandoned, their efforts. Not only does it take time to change an old
habit into a new one (more than 3-4 weeks) but if our goals are not based on
knowing who we are, how our minds work, and what’s at stake for us,
motivationally speaking, we are destined to fail.
If you will look at the coming year as a
series of “teachable moments” tailored for your learning, and you will engage each of the four elements of
perspective, you can bring about the positive changes you want in your life. A change in perspective brings a change in
your reality – that’s the wisdom of the ages.
