It’s New Year’s Eve. Many of us use this time to reflect on the year that has passed and plan for the year ahead. With this in mind, I wanted to share a tradition that I first heard about and started last year, and I invite you to play along.
Make 3 Lists
The activity includes making three lists as you reflect on the past year and begin to visualize the year ahead in your mind.
- Make a list of what you want to leave behind in the year that is ending.
- Make a list of the good things you want to take with you into new year.
- Make a list of the things you want to create for yourself in the year ahead.
Then tonight, on New Year’s Eve, take the list of things you want to leave behind in 2014, and you burn it!
Now you can take the burning literally or metaphorically. If you don’t have a fireplace or safe place to burn stuff, you can rip it up and flush it down the toilet, or fold a paper airplane and fly it off a bridge, use your imagination and do whatever will have the most meaning to you to make your commitment stick!
My “crap list” will have some interesting things on it:
- It will have a few people on it.
- It will have a few bad habits on it.
- It will have a few things on it that I know have been holding me back from getting myself to where I want to be.
And tonight, it’s gonna BURN!
I see so much potential for awesomeness in 2015, and I don’t want to carry any of the things or people that have been holding me back into the year ahead. A new year is a chance for a fresh start. And although I truly believe that EVERYday is a chance to start over, a new year just seems to have that much more meaning and impact.
So what will you put on your lists? What do you know is bad for you? What is good for you? And what do you strive to achieve? Make your lists! From the moment you write it down, and you see it in front of you, if becomes REALALITY!