Make This Year Your Best Year Ever Terri Lomax January 1, 2017 Happy New Year! Girl, you made it through one of the most tumultuous years of our lifetime. Between the results of our new president elect and the tragic loss of many of our icons, 2016 was a tough one. But there is also lots to celebrate. In particular: You! You made it through another 365 days of being the creative, purposeful, and passionate woman that you are! You’ve made it to a new year with new milestones to be met and new heights to climb. This year could very well be your best year ever! This month’s theme on the Mocha Girls Pit Stop blog, is Best Practices for Organizing Your Life and Goals. The new year is always a time of calibration and renewal. But for many of us it can be a quick spurt of motivation followed by a lull in the vigor we started our year off with. I’m not going to let that be you this year! I refuse. As your sister, friend, and fellow Mocha Girl on a Mission, I recognize the magic in you. You are way too full of the goodness this world needs. But to stay the course there has to be order, which is our overarching theme for 2017. I think of order as harmony in mind, body, and spirit. A synergy between purpose, priority, and action. This can be tough sometimes with the pull we get from various areas of our lives. Finances, relationships, faith. They all demand our attention but if we can get them in order, we are limitless in our possibilities. Make This Year Your Best Year Ever Consider this: order and organization is an act of kindness to yourself. It’s a radical and rational way to give ourselves comfortability and breathing room as we make our way through the days and months. One of our fellow Mocha Girls, shared the anecdote below and it fits perfectly with our theme. “I have a god daughter that I like to send small gifts to monthly. Fun yet simple things for her to receive in the mail. During 2016 I would often forget to send something out, leading to feelings of stress, and negative self talk about how I can’t just ‘get things done’. I decided to be kind to myself this year by creating order around this small task that means a lot to me. I got organized by pre purchasing the envelopes I send her gifts out in, as well as assembling a few months worth of the goodies. This way all I have to do each month is drop one off at the post office and flood myself with the good juju of giving my god daughter a smile and being sure she knows how much she means to me.” The time is now! With the rush of the holidays behind us, I want you to take a deep breath to really consider the ways that you want to organize yourself and the goals you have for 2017. You owe it to yourself, right? Mantra of the Week I will not judge myself for where I’m starting. I’m making progress everyday. Lets dive into a few practical ways to do just that: 1. Prioritize: Make a decision right now about what is most important to you. Is it a renewal of your finances? Is it rebuilding your relationship with family? Is it setting the foundation for a major project on your horizon? 2. Map it Out: Open up your calendar and fill in all the important dates right now so that you don’t forget to complete the important actions that go with them. Birthdays, deadlines, time for self care, etc… Getting a visual of what your weeks and months looks like diffuses the last minute chaos we so often experience. Be sure to view the 4 resources I’ve included below, for your convenience. 3. Celebrate Often: As the year goes on don’t forget to take time to celebrate yourself and your accomplishments. This acknowledgement of small successes aids in the momentum towards your bigger goals. My Challenge To You: Take some time to consider the things in 2016 that may have stifled your flow. The things that made you feel stressed, unproductive, or out of sync with your passion and purpose. Remember that most of the time it isn’t that we are incapable of creating order, it’s just that we haven’t taken the time and genuine effort to create it. But now is your time! Make a list, map it out, ask for help, do the work to create order. We have a boatload of resources on the Mocha Girls Pit Stop blog that can assist you with your goal mapping and organization. Take a look below! The Ultimate 5-Year Plan: An easy-to-use workbook to help you design your ideal life in 6 steps The 2017 Goal Mapping Workbook- Jump Start Your Year By Planning Ahead The Self-Reflection eJournal: A Guided Journal to Increase Your Productivity Break Up With Procrastination: 7 Steps to Help You Follow Through With Your Goals Reflection Question: What can you do right now, to make tomorrow easier?
