Have a Meaningful and Fulfilling New
Year!
by
Leslie Godwin
Traditional goal-setting methods advise you to
pick a goal "out there somewhere" and then suggest you plan how to get there as
quickly and painlessly as possible.
Unfortunately, life doesnıt work that way.
Especially when it comes to big things. We make a lot of small decisions that
put us on the path to a loving marriage, being a good parent, or choosing the
right career. And then we make many more small decisions that keep us on that
path.
Here are some ideas on how to move forward in the
best direction for you this new year.
1. Fully accept what you have in your life
right now. Open yourself up to feel gratitude. You canıt feel needy and
grateful at the same time. Feeling gratitude gets you grounded in the best part
of yourself.
2. Organize your life around the "most
luminous idea" you can get in touch with. (I'm borrowing the phrase from
spiritual teacher Mirra Alfassa.) Try to reach above the lower impulses that
will drag down your thoughts and ideals, like neediness, fear, anxiety, and
egoic concerns.
3. Acknowledge that there are important
aspects of your life and future planning that you can't control. This is a
critical step. When you plan for something very specific, and feel you can make
it happen by your sheer will, you are likely to feel "driven" as opposed to
tuning in to the general direction your life is flowing and riding that current.
Opportunities will come into view as you travel your path that you canıt see
from here.
4. As you travel your path, keep turning
toward what nurtures your soul. Roseanne Cash shared this story with Larry
King recently. Her dad, Johnny Cash, would often tell her as she was growing up,
"You can choose evil or you can choose good. I choose the good."
You can apply that choice to finding and staying
on your career or life path. Following your path isn't a magical "yellow brick
road" that once you spot the first golden bricks, you blindly follow for a
lifetime.
Following your path is making one choice after
another. Some big, most small. But these choices keep moving you toward what you
care about, toward doing whatıs right for you, and toward "the good."
Whatıs your next step?
Leslie Godwin, MFCC, is a Career & Life-Transition Coach specializing in helping
people put their families, values, and principles first when making career and
life choices. Leslie is the author of,
"From Burned Out to Fired Up: A Woman's
Guide to Rekindling the Passion and Meaning in Work and Life" published by
Health Communications. For more information, go to
www.LeslieGodwin.com.
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