New Year: Nonsense.
If you’ve been overwhelmed by all this new years shit, I get it.
It’s… a lot.
Being bombarded by other people’s social media highlight reels recapping their year in half second flashes feels like subliminal messaging with the sole intention of making me feel like I have done nothing, not ever, not once. Plus, we scroll and see one after the other after the other, which makes it impossible not to blur the lines between one person’s achievements and the next, dulling any objective interpretation of our own.
Remember you can restart your life at any time, which means you don’t have to do it on anyone else’s schedule. If the idea of reflecting or doing shit to better your life sounds like an impossible task at the moment, don’t sweat it. We don’t need a new year to tell us to start flossing our teeth or putting our book down before bed. We can do that on any given day at any given time.
So if you need, save planning/journaling/etc. for a future you when you’re in a more reflective mood and remember you can’t grow if you don’t give yourself time to rest. Some years I am a beast on January first but most I am hungover and filled with a very brutal internal dialogue. It’s not like you can’t start shit in the middle of the year and still see results.
Plus, it’s not about seeing results. It’s never been about seeing results. It’s about feeling better about the journey. The reflecting and honoring part of the process is all about ensuring our personal path is more clear but that doesn’t mean the path will be paved with glitter and gold. Whenever we are walking along our own paths, it’s guaranteed to be incredibly isolating and lonely at times. This is why reflection and action is so crucial. It helps us build trusts within ourselves to have faith in our ability to make the next step, knowing that if we fuck up we’ll be just fine, but we probably won’t fuck up because we’ve reflected on this before. Even when we have no fucking idea where our path is heading, or if the next turn is the right one; we can always know we are heading somewhere fulfilling because it’s based in our true interest and rooted in our values.
With less expectations of the outcome and more faith in the process, we really give ourselves a chance to focus on the shit that matters without stressing out about doing so perfectly. This sense of faith ensures we will benefit from the wrong turns and missed steps so much more and can feel secure enough to look around and enjoy the view once in a while, even if you still have no idea where the fuck you’re heading.
In my opinion, it will always be more important to stay grounded than to elevate to unsustainable heights. Just like it’s far more fulfilling to find wisdom in the challenges than feel ashamed of the inevitable slip-ups.
When it comes down to real growth, or genuine personal success? In my opinion those things are personal — and nearly invisible to others. Like I mentioned yesterday, a lot of the most important things we can do for our wellbeing and quality of life are not actually identifiable as traditional external successes. There’s no way we can “prove” we’ve grown, learned, expanded, or found peace in the slowness.
So while many believe success is about your finances. I think it’s about creating time freedom. It’s not about your owning a home, it’s about feeling at home in your skin. It’s not about going on extravagant vacations, it’s about not feeling so trapped in your head. It’s not about your 401-k and your investment plan, it’s about feeling in control of your future by keeping yourself accountable today.
It’s about joy. It’s about peace. But, again, those things aren’t really trackable to the naked eye. That’s why I advocate for reflection so we’re overlooking all the shit we’ve accomplished simply by surviving.
Plus, only you can establish when you need to release, change, reduce, add, or manage something to improve your life. You have to take personal responsibility for yourself enough to know you can change, while understanding how fucking hard it can be to simply decide to do so.
As long as you’re focusing all that reflecting, honoring, and doing where it most counts, the rest is extra credit. And we’re not being graded so stop worrying so much about the damned scores.
