kay so in this post, I want to offer some advice on how we can navigate this final month of December and position ourselves for an excellent 2023.
December is a weird month where so many of us just pick our heads up and go "holy shit, what a year!" and we start to slow down, and take everything to a lower gear, and start going into party/consumption mode.
Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with any of that - but there are some small tweaks that we can make to set ourselves up beautifully for a brand new year, a new energy, along with new hope and optimism.
I'd like to share some of those tweaks with you below, now:
5-Point Guide for Preparing for 2023
1. Bring all the possibilities back on the table.
When we're young, we have all these ambitions and goals. And then as we go about life, get older, try and fail, we start to "negotiate with life" where we start asking for less and less. This is completely natural, BUT this makes it all the more important to revisit that original optimism, your original 'spunk' back when you set out with your grand vision for your life.
The truth is that through your experience of life, you're more capable to actualize these dreams than before. Before, you were 0% experience and 100% hubris. Now you have experience. Bring back the hubris and employ the experience.
Question: if 2023 went as well as you can believably imagine, what would that be like?
2. Get super honest about where you're being inauthentic to yourself.
Really put your feet to the fire and journal deep on the following questions:
- Where in my life am I prioritizing others' opinions of me? - Who am I trying to impress or prove myself to? - Where are you not acting on your creative impulses for fear of looking ridiculous? - In what ways are you disparaging, dismissing, or discounting yourself? (Stop! lol)
After spending some time answering these questions, begin to imagine what it would be like to NOT do ANY of this. And really step into a deeper level of authenticity to yourself. Just activate your imagination this way, for now.
3. Choose some qualities you'd like to enhance in yourself.
Think of someone that you admire - someone who's persona and life you'd like to emulate in some way - what qualities about them would you like for yourself?
They could be any, such as: consistency, followthrough, focus, will-power, wisdom, patience, clarity, control, decisiveness, trust, satisfaction, self-assurance, confidence, happiness, simplicity, minimalism, stoicism, awareness, consciousness, understanding, intelligence, to name a few.
If you could take any such quality and enhance it so that you had more and more of it, what would it be? Choose 3 to 5 of them, write them down, and put them somewhere you'll see them often. Begin to imagine what 2023 would be like if you had these qualities.
4. Double down on self-respect and appreciation.
Nobody talks about this, but it's a crucial point: only a minority of people are like you - people who take their self-growth into their own hands. Most people don't! When you go to a family gathering or hang out with your friend group - do they want to discuss self-discipline and personal growth with you? Usually not.
It's rare and amazing that you're taking your own growth into your hands and you would benefit from recognizing, appreciating, and respecting this quality about yourself. If nothing else.
Fostering self-respect and appreciation leads to greater confidence, stability, and a willingness to follow your own leadership.
5. With that said - improve your social sphere!
Make more friends with people who are on this path. Meet them here, in Discord groups or wherever else. Set up accountability structures with them where you check in daily/weekly with your progress on your goals.
Set up an atmosphere where everyone believes in each other's visions of a great life. Stay committed to it. Foster it. It's incredibly valuable and will pay out so much for you over time.
That's it!
I tend to go on a bit, so hopefully this is short and impactful enough. If you do any ONE of these, you'll get significant benefit in 2023 - but if you do all of them, then you can expect to change your entire situation into a much better one.
Let us know how it goes!