The Beginning of a New Year

Many have been eagerly awaiting the end of the 2023 year. With all its hardships, challenges, difficulties, and losses, saying goodbye to the “old” and ringing in the “new”, could not have come more quickly.

2024 – provides new opportunities, new adventures, and new beginnings. It’s a chance to start over, to make changes, to do things differently. We anticipate that this new year will be better than the year before, after all, it is a new year, right?

And so, we make plans – to lose weight and eat healthier. To work less and devote more time with family. To get out and have more fun. To save more and spend less. To get out of debt. To do a bucket list adventure. To get married. To have children – and on and on the list of “doing” becomes greater and greater and before we know it, we are caught up in the tasks of doing, and the very thing we set out not to do, well – we do it anyways. And what happens – this new year starts to look a lot like last year.

But what if we looked at the beginning of the new year differently? What if our goals were not focused on “doing,” but on “becoming?” Becoming a better version of ourselves, which requires us to be vulnerable to both the possibilities and disappointments of life – to be honest with ourselves and others about our personal struggles, to be open to acceptance and to be less judgmental. To learn to love unconditionally and forgive without expectations. To walk in line with our values – to live authentically. No masks to cover up what we have hidden, but permission given, to allow ourselves to be seen.

You see, these are not tasks to accomplish but experiences welcomed – opportunities that will provide endless possibilities – possibilities that will uncover our strengths, our weaknesses, our purpose, and our life mission.

So, let’s change our motto for this new year to, “It’s not what we will do in 2024, but who we will become in 2024.” I assure you, that in the process we will find adventure and make new discoveries about what it means to “become” – all that we were meant to be. Are you ready? Let’s do this! Let’s welcome 2024 with such an expectancy – that we are confident that a better version of ourselves is yet to come!

Happy New Year. Wishing you a prosperous and rewarding journey!