This year, let’s do something a little bit different. Instead of proclaiming New Year’s resolutions that are so lofty they can’t be reached and setting ourselves up for failure, let’s set up the New Year right. Let’s change the paradigm we’re using to think about 2013. Because most people when thinking about the New Year go into a sort of victim mode. They look at it as a steam roller that is coming for them and the best they can hope for is to get on their knees and pray and hope that it veers out of the way in the nick of time or some comic book hero or angel comes to scoop them up in time. Which is a terrible way to see the future, btw. Just a bit fatalistic and sad. And for those few who stand up and shake their fist at the steam roller, well good for you. However, I’d prefer it if you’d just step out of the way. Steam rollers don’t maneuver on a dime you know….
Ahem… anyway, life shouldn’t be a steam roller and so none of that should be necessary. Life is full of opportunity and everything is possible in this coming 2013 and we aren’t victims of our fate. We’re participants in it. So let’s participate. Visualize 2013 and see yourself in it. Not in the grand bullet point items that you would use to make resolutions, but in the day-to-day. Are you happy? Are you doing what you want? Are you where you want to be? Are you making motions to achieve your dreams? Take note of all of that. There are no right or wrong answers, just truth. Knowing where you are allows you to make a start towards where you want to be.
Now start imagining the year being the way you want it to be. Don’t try to logic it, don’t undersell it, don’t make action plans, just imagine it being the way you want. And each time you think about New Years, think of that. Feel it in your heart and in your body and know that it’s true. It’s not a magic bullet that changes everything around you, but it does set you up to succeed, sets up all of your choices and actions to support your success, and guides you to opportunities that will make it achievable.