I sat down to consider my life in terms of what I had accomplished, each year, over the last few years. Thinking back over the last five years will be easy I thought to myself. After all I have always been busy and productive: it would not be hard to think of what I had accomplished each year. Wow, was I ever wrong. I went back as far as five years and found lots of things that I had done and checked off my list, but how many of them were really fulfilling? I took out my planners and journals and found one meaningful “theme”, rather than specific accomplishments for each year. Here is what I learned about myself:
- 2002 Year of Meeting My Fabulous Husband
- 2003 Year of Our Glorious Wedding
- 2004 Year of Introducing Success Teams
- 2005 Year of Launching My Website
- 2006 Year of Surviving Menopause
Take a few minutes and write down your major empowering “theme” for each of the last five years, as I have done. See what you come up with. If you are like most people I know, you may have a tough time remembering much of what was important in the blur of getting through the days, weeks and months. So little of what we have done was not actually planned. We often feel like we are simply in survival mode. The years go by in a blur, rather than with a vision and a plan!
Just imagine if we had chosen and lived by one major “theme” for every year of our lives. We would now have 50+ annual themes to remember our lives by. Our lives would be filled with important milestones. It would also make for wonderful memoir writing or scrapbook material!
If you have a tough time coming up with meaningful themes for years past, don’t worry. In 2007 you can begin anew. As an alternative to writing a list of New Year’s resolutions, try something new…choose one major empowering theme for the upcoming year. One major theme may be a simpler and clearer path to living a year you will really cherish. Be sure and choose a theme that centers on what you want for your life, rather than what you don’t want. For me, 2007 will not be the year of getting rid of my migraines; it will be the Year of Vibrant Health!
One resource that I adore for planning the New Year is “The Gift of a Year: How to Achieve the Most Meaningful, Satisfying, and Pleasurable Year of Your Life” written by Mira Kirshenbaum. Mira shows us how to give ourselves the gift of a year to do, be or have something special for ourselves. Do check it out.
What empowering theme will you choose for 2007?
