Happy New Year!

If I’m honest with you, and with me, there is hardly any magic for me when the calendar changes from December to January. It is a dark time of year and cold. I’ve probably overindulged over the last month with food, drink, spending, and people – and I’m tired. I have tried to stir up, anticipate, and expect fantastic and inspiring goals and life changes. But most of the time, January 1 future-gazing brings anxiety, fatigue, and an earnest desire to see through the dark but only seeing mottled shadows. 

In the deep midwinter, my body and mind and spirit want to stay in the warm cozy womb of slow and wondrous togetherness. It does not want to break out from the starting line into the frigid January air racing toward all sorts of goals and ramped up efforts that sound good and feel false. Winter is my time of watching, waiting, resting. 

My New Years chill vibe (pun TOTALLY intended) doesn’t mean that I don’t love special moments of renewal and new beginnings, though. I do love the rush of re-focus, re-new, and re-start. New ideas, new plans, adjusted goals are fun! The dreaming of how things will be or could be provokes fresh creativity and momentum. I love the idea of New Years resolve. 

One of my all time favorite smells is opening a crayon box for the first time. The crack of a sharpened pencil tip breaking off just a bit as pencil meets new notebook page sharpens my sense of readiness. Let’s take notes… with our neatest handwriting… for at least a paragraph and a half. New pens, new journals, new shoes, new classrooms, new books. The start of school vibe is my beginning time of year. These are the tools and rhythms that reset my compass, clear the fog, and make my heart, mind and spirit say ‘ready, set, go.’ 

A year ago, I began the adventure of becoming a CoActive Coach. I timed the journey to more or less coincide with the school calendar of our youngest child, who was beginning their senior year. Now my child is getting ready to go away to college, and I’m in CoActive Certification which will culminate in my CPCC status (Certified Professional CoActive Coach) and my ACC from the International Coach Federation. I’m doing a whole lot of reflecting, a whole lot of dreaming, and I’m having a hard time not buying the biggest box of crayons. It’s that time of year. 

In this new and next season, dreams will be nurtured, goals hatched, and plans sketched out (with new markers on new paper). I am fully playing with a New Year’s energy. It has beginnings and ends and adventure and play and post-its. Dreams and plans and hopes are sprouting. I am learning and growing, meeting new people, and connecting with old friends in a celebration of hope. 

An existing structure or habit organically supports supports growth and change.  I know that this is the time of year where fresh creativity and momentum begin to sprout for me. Setting goals and hopes at this time of year is like placing seedlings in freshly composted soil.  Many things can be grown in a hothouse. But when I look at my coaching practice, and this new season in my life, I’m choosing to value the natural flow and strength of who I am and how I am. 

Welcome to My New Year Celebration. I invite you to find your flow and declare your own celebration, too!