Six Questions for the New Year

I love to steal. Good ideas, that is. At the inflection point of a new year, I see all kinds of great exercises from fellow coaches on summarizing this past year and setting goals for the new year. My thanks to the following coaches for providing fodder for my thinking: Shirley Anderson, Janet Auty-Carlisle, Marcia Dorfman, Morgana Rae, Bruce Sandy, and Jeremy Stover.

After parsing through the practices of some of the best coaches in the field, I noticed a pattern of six general questions. Here they are:

1. What accomplishments do I want to celebrate? These could be breakthroughs, things I said or did, new behaviors or thoughts. By celebrating what was good about the year, I honor my efforts and those who helped me along the way.

2. What disappointments do I want to acknowledge and let go of? It’s easy to unknowingly bring forward my past failures from year to year, not as a way of learning, but as a leg iron that clamps down on my ability to create a new reality. By purposely recognizing where I have been disappointed and choosing to break the connection with that failure, the field opens up for something new to happen.

3. What are the lessons learned? This is a biggie for me. It’s a way to make sense of my struggles, frustrations, anguish. Without the lessons, those golden insights that guide me as I navigate life, much of suffering is hard to reconcile. The lessons change from year to year and point to where I am personally growing.

4. What am I grateful for? One of my colleagues captured this beautifully with the question, “Who am I most happy to have in my life?” This can also be, “What am I
most happy to have in my life?” Gratitude increases my awareness of the resources I have available to me, at any moment.

5. What do I most want for the coming year? This is the land of visioning, articulating my deepest desires. I like to pick a theme for the year. Others refer to this as naming the coming year, as in “The Year of …..” It’s where I set my intention for what I want to manifest, the target for the arrows I will launch throughout the year.

6. What commitment am I ready to make? To get what I want often requires removing obstacles and moving into new territory. What is in the way that I am ready to give up? It might be being right or doing it alone. As a friend says, what’s the skinny limb that I am willing to go out on? It might be trying out a new career. Or moving to another part of the country. When I commit, the whole world opens up. Not always in the way I expect, but I know that my commitment is opening doors.

For each of these questions, there are different ways to anchor the answers. I have used rituals for burning my disappointments (write it down and throw it in the fireplace), drawing my accomplishments (using crayons and colored pencils on poster board), and building (out of Lego blocks) my deepest desires. What matters is that I find a way to make my thoughts and feelings visceral and visible to the outer world. If the answers to these questions only live in my inner world, there is less chance that I will be able to make something happen in the outer world. I need to be able to witness my aspirations, to bring the inside out, in order to create the long-term results.

What I have forgotten to say until now is that all of this can be done with a sense of play and laughter. Sometimes I need to crank up the stereo while I’m reflecting and ritualizing, dancing out my disappointments. This need not be a somber event, but one where my full inner spirit gets to be expressed. The way I approach these exercises can cause procrastination and falling by the wayside or immediate jumping in.

Try it out for yourself. Answer the six questions. Make it fun, meaningful, and satisfying.

Comments

[Anonymous]

Great words Carol. These are definitely going to be a part of my New Year's
plans.

[Stefani]

I spent several years making formal, written resolutions but lately, that
doesn't feel right. I love your notion of "The Year of ___"! I make handcrafted
greeting cards and paper-related art and had a wonderful experience at my first
craft show in November and have decided to really focus on more shows,
full-steam ahead for the coming year. So, now I have deemed 2006, "The Year of
Successful Craft Shows". I like that - thanks, Carol!

Stefani
Pine Tree Designs

[Catherine Storing]

Very inspirational, this is the year where I push my business forward and bring
health and fitness to my life. Thanks for giving an outline to follow.

Catherine Storing

[maria]

Thanks Carol! As a fellow coach, I almost can't resist the pull around this time
of year to look back and look ahead.

I always make a list of accomplishments and highlights from the previous year,
and a list of goals or focus areas. Last night, I just started a page entitled,
'In 2006, I'd like to ... ' and just did a brain dump of anything that popped
into my head. It's a very long list, and I don't really expect to do everything
on it, but I do like the process of making the list and having it to refer to
from time to time.

I think/hope 2006 will be 'The Year of Creative Living,' both in terms of
nurturing and developing my creative potential, moving my creative/jewelry
business forward, hopefully moving to a new place where I can expand my studio,
and just in general being colorful and adventurous. Yay!

Happy New Year to you!

[Carol Ross]

Thanks for your comments! To give credit where credit is due, the term, "The
Year of...." came from Jeremy Stover, www.jeremystover.com, a fellow coach in
the San Francisco area.

I love hearing different themes for the year, so thanks for sharing yours. One
person emailed me and said her theme is The Year of Forgiveness. This is
powerful stuff, indeed.

As for me, 2006 will be The Year of Boldness and Fun. As I write this, I'm
sitting in my office, wearing leather cowboy pants, with tassels on the sides,
just for the fun of it. I bought them at a consignment shop several years ago
and seemed to only have the nerve to wear them on Halloween. Until today.

[Troy Worman]

Excellent post and good advice. I like your writing, Carol.

Thank you!

[Adela Rubio]

Enjoyed the perspective changing questions. I totally agree, we need to make the unseen seen. Thanks for the exploration, Carol.

[carolross]

Thanks for stopping by, Adela, and glad you found the questions interesting.

Re: making the unseen seen. For me, I do this best by writing. I just blogged about my theme for 2012, Healthy Wholeness, to start making it real for me. And each year, around Jan 1, I also take down the old theme that's written on a piece of paper and posted on my office wall, and put up the new theme for the year.

[Sally Spencer-Thomas]

So happy to see you back at it! This is the Year to Cherish, Focus and Grow.

[carolross]

It's good to be back, Sally. Love your theme for the year! Cherish is a word that I don't often hear but it has deep meaning.