I found myself slightly depressed all the way through January. It stretched on into February. I am usually a positive person, or at the least I don’t stay depressed for long so this was unusual. I looked back at my last few months and realized I had reason to be sad. My dear aunt had passed away. I broke up with my boyfriend. I met someone new and we went out a few times and I never heard from him again. The project I was working on and being paid to do ended. Well, the project didn’t end but the pay did. I am still working on the project but I was sad that I would no longer be in the office working with the people I had come to appreciate so much. So…there were lots of reasons to be sad. But I don’t believe in letting life make me sad for long. So the question was, regardless of the past year’s disappointments, what do I need to do to look forward to this year?
Then I found a book I had read 5 years ago. It was called “the Best Year of Your Life” by Debbie Ford. I declared the year I read it (2012) the best year of my life and when I looked back on that year it was the best! It was marvelous! I did all sorts of things and had all sorts of fun! So, said I to myself, why not do it again! And here I am trying it again and expecting to have a marvelous 2017…and beyond!
You, Dear Ones, get to go along with me on this journey, and if you like, you can join in. Ms. Ford says, in the beginning of the book that setting an intention to have the best year is the most important thing! She says we are living by intentions anyway but we are not conscious of them. So we are driving blind (my words) and then we wonder why we keep crashing into things. She says, “To create the best year of our lives, we must challenge our self-defeating behaviors and find new ways of reacting to the everyday events that shape our experience.” So there is more to this setting of intentions. We have to understand what has been getting in our way or causing us to “crash” and then change that. “I never promised you a rose garden”.
She goes on to say that we limit ourselves and our belief in ourselves. I see this all the time when someone says, “Oh, I can’t do that” or “that would never work”. We have just said “no” to new possibilities. My favorite saying is “Never be the first one to tell yourself ‘no’”. In other words, I should not talk myself out of a possibility. If it isn’t for me, let that message come from somewhere else. If I say “I can’t possibly do that”, that is the end. I never even try. So put it out there and see what The Universe says!
As I said, I have decided to make this year the best one yet!! That is daunting at this point but we shall see where it goes! Right now, I have already started two of the things Ms. Ford mentions in her book. I have set the intention to make this year the best of my life. And I am following my energy. I am getting up earlier and working in the morning. I have my best ideas and lots of them in the morning…the early morning. When I sleep in, or resist getting up, by the time I do get up, I’ve either lost all those ideas, or worse yet, I’ve lost the energy to do anything with them! Terrible!! So here I am writing this blog and I will be doing this regularly! Yay for me…and for you if you choose to join me in creating The Best Year of Your Life!
Carpe Diem