The end of the year is fast approaching. You already may be looking back on 2022 and deciding how you feel about it, maybe deciding how to tidy up any loose ends so you can meet January and the new year with the gusto they deserve! If you heeded our advice from our earlier post, you have been mentally reviewing the good things that happened to you this year. How was it? If you could do it again, would you do the same, or would you change it all?
Consider this: “If you could do it all over again” may make a nifty party game, but in real life it may mean redoing everything in order to redo anything. That is the risk, that any one thing you change may have unchangeable influences on other decisions you have already made, other journeys you have already taken, other people you have already met. Changing everything in your life may mean having to undo already made decisions or even release people from your circle. But making mid-stream adjustments is not so difficult. That is not to say you cannot make significant changes if you feel you want to explore different or new things. Incremental changes now can reset you and your aspirations throughout next year.
That is why a year-end review of what you wanted to accomplish versus what you achieved is so important. It is important for a businessperson, homemaker, student, parent, and you! Ignore them for a few years and if you ever answer the question, “Is the life you have the life you want?” with “Um, not really,” it will that much harder to adjust your behavior and actions and redirect yourself, to reinforce something you have been doing that you want to continue or enhance, or to consider outright changes to put yourself back on the path you envisioned. Not waiting for an eventual then sets you up to handle the very real now so much better.
Start everything from now, even knowing “now” keeps changing. “Now” always has the benefit of the knowledge and experience you have already accomplished. The past, even pasts that have not been the best of pasts, have gotten us where we are today. This is why we said it is so important to take time every morning to look at what this year has meant to you. It is easier to find the good from the recent past, to recall the best moments of this year, and to plan adjustments that may be wanted or needed.
Leave “If you could do it all over again?” to the party goers. You have no choice but to do it all over again just as you did the first time anyway because there is no changing of the past. But you can adjust, you can refine, you can maintain. You may not be able to change the past, but you can decide how you feel about it and what you must do to make next year better. Look at your “now” and instead of, “If you could do it all over again?” ask yourself, “What if I did this little thing differently this year?” How would your “now” look now?
What would you adjust, refine, and maintain. Do you like that better? Does it bring you closer to your dreams? The end of the year indeed is fast approaching. Take the time and look back on 2022. What will you keep about it? What will you refine?
Will you enter 2023 with the gusto it deserves?
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