how to end 2016

So. 2016.

This was not the favorite year of a lot of people.

The good news is that the world gets a chance to start over this weekend. Next Sunday morning, we will wake up in a new year. But it’s our choice, and our choice alone, to have new energy. If we aren’t careful, we will drag the same kinds of low-energy problems into the next year, and then look around and wonder why life is the way it is.

I’m painting a rather depressing picture because I want to impress one thing on you: a brilliant, magical, inspired life does not usually happen by accident. It happens by intention.

So here are my tips to close 2016 and start 2017 with intention:

• Carve out some real time before the end of 2016 to sit and reflect. Not when you are hungover. Not when you are tired. Put two real hours on your calendar.
• Feel what needs to be felt from 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Bring those feelings back up and just sit with them for a few. Don’t just say “Ugh, 2016 sucked.” That means nothing. Get specific about what went wrong, and then sit in that feeling. (If what you need to feel is gratitude, YES. DO THAT TOO.)
• How do you want to feel in 2017? Don’t start 2017 by setting a metric-motivated goal. We set those goals because we think they all lead to one thing: feeling good. What if, first, we determined what “feeling good” meant to us, and then planned our lives around creating that feeling? Yep.
• Celebrate and close out the year with sincerity and meaning. Before you go out and party, have a small celebration on your own to mark the passing of one more lesson-filled year. This will help you leave 2016 in 2016, and be ready to move. the. heck. on.

This is my realest wish:

May 2017 bring us to life. May we stretch, may we hear our own voices, and may our squinting eyes adjust to the light that beams down on us. May we find the courage to love deeper, truer, realer. May we find the nerve to do what scares us, and be invigorated by failure. May we remember who we are: empowered learners, here in service to one another.  

Be well, friends.