To create something new, we must create space by completing the old
One of the most powerful yet simple concepts I received training in as a coach is supporting my clients in acknowledging and celebrating their accomplishments before moving on to other visions or goals.
The reason this is so important is that if we don’t take the time to experience the fulfillment of having achieved one or more of our goals or dreams is we end up never feeling fulfilled or satisfied since we are essentially leaving ourselves incomplete by not experiencing the fulfillment of our accomplishments.
Before being trained in this practice I was like most people, where I would not take the time to acknowledge and feel the fulfillment of what I had accomplished during the year. Therefore, I never experienced the soul-satisfying fulfillment and completion of this self-loving celebration.
When we don’t allow ourselves to experience the achievement of a goal by acknowledging and celebrating it on a deep emotional level, we will always be chasing after new goals, but we will set ourselves up to never experience the fulfillment that we long for. It’s like a never-ending hamster wheel….always chasing but never arriving and experiencing true fulfillment.
I didn’t realize how powerful this process was until I began doing it. Why is this process so powerful?
Focusing on what you have accomplished in the past year automatically lifts your mood since it always feels great to notice when you accomplish a goal.
Also it increases your confidence for taking on new goals for the new year since you have proved to yourself that you can create and achieve some pretty amazing results over the course of a year.
In addition, this process helps you to remember everything that you accomplished vs. what your working memory tells you (which is about 80% less!)
Even after 20 years of doing this process religiously, I am still amazed at how much more I achieve during the year than I thought I had. It is very common for us to forget what we have accomplished 5, 10 or 11 months ago.
Here are the 5 Easy Steps To
Get Complete With The Past Year & Create the New Year Of Your Dreams!
- Enter all of the accomplishments you have achieved over the past year. Be sure to include everything that feels like an accomplishment. The easiest way that I have found to find ALL of my accomplishments in every area of my life is to go through my calendar and emails over the entire year. While reviewing my emails and calendar, I then take note of the projects, goals, & dreams that I have accomplished and enter them into a word document.
- I then categorize each accomplishment under the eight main life categories: (You may recognize these categories from the popular “Wheel of Life” coaching exercise)
- Romantic Relationship
- Fun & Recreation
- Health
- Career
- Money
- Physical Environment
- Emotional/Spiritual Wellbeing
- Friends & Family
By entering your accomplishments under a life category, you can get a feel for which areas of your life that you have made some progress in over the year. You can also identify which life areas may need your attention so you can set goals for the new year.
- Once you have entered all of your accomplishments, give yourself the gift of basking in these accomplishments. Be sure to share them with your spouse or a safe friend. Journal about how achieving them makes you feel. Celebrate them in any way that is meaningful for you. Give yourself a gift as an acknowledgment of a job well done! I bought myself the latest Galaxy Note 5 smartphone this year!
Once you are done celebrating your accomplishments for the past year, now you are officially complete with this year and are ready to let in the new by determining what your goals are for the new year ahead.
- Using the same eight life categories from this past year, rate each life category measuring for the level of satisfaction you feel about each life category as of today from a scale of 1-10. 10 would mean that you are extremely satisfied in that area of your life, and 1 would mean that you are completely dissatisfied in that area of your life.
- Pick any category that you have rated a 6 or below and set some goals and actions steps you will take on a regular basis until you achieve that goal.
The objective with this exercise is to achieve balance in your life. In other words, it is better to have all 8’s vs. 4 tens and 4 ones in your 8 life categories. To prove that balance makes sense for a satisfying life, imagine your life categories with all 8’s vs. your life categories with 4 tens and 4 ones. All 8’s win every time!
Here is to creating the best new year of your dreams!!!
Mary
