Journal Practice - prompts for reflection and Intention at New Year
Welcome to the New Year! May it bring you good health and happiness.
New Year is an obvious ‘new start’. It’s a marker. It comes with emotions – hope, fear, excitement, relief amongst others. We often feel compelled to make intentions, to leap forward into trying to ‘improve’ things or make our lives ‘better’. But maybe we don’t need to strive or to pressure ourselves. Maybe we can reflect on the year past, celebrate where we are now, and leave an openness for what is to come.
Each New Year I spend time reflecting, and creating intentions. Rather than resolutions (which feel too pressurised and likely to fail) I like to think about intentions as process and journey rather than end result.
I usually tune into teacher Elena Brower’s reflection webinar and enjoy her thoughts on her year past and the year ahead . It gives me welcome time to think about all I have done in the past year, celebrate the highlights, reflect on the challenges and explore what I might leave behind and take forward. I do this for both my business and yoga, and also my family life at home.
I also realise that I often find a theme that I want to work with – often its slowing down, doing less, increasing time for me, finding joy in the moment. But it has also been ideas such as building community, making connections.
I received a beautiful book from one of my students recently, ‘Growing Brave’ by Donna Ashworth. She is one of my favourite poets and I met her in the summer at a Wellbeing Festival. This is her newest book and she opens with this Authors’ Note:
“My focus word for the past year was brave.
I believe in the power of allocating a word each January.
There is much noise fighting for our ears at the start of the new year and so, for me, drowning it all out and focusing on one thing works wonder for my peace. Since life came calling in ,a rather terrifying way, brave was the word I chose. Or perhaps it chose me!?”
I love this as it really chimes with how I have reflected each new year and found a theme or focus to keep checking in with.
This year I have chosen SIMPLIFY.
I will be using it across everything I do – work, home life and anything else that comes my way. I know that it will help to keep me grounded, focused and will reduce overwhelm. It will reward me, I hope, with more time and space, and a more balanced nervous system. When these things seem out of balance I will return to SIMPLIFY to return to where I need to be.
If reflecting purposefully on your past year, and finding intention and for this coming year chimes with you, I invite you to take 30 minutes to sit for reflection and intention as we start the new year. You might like to voice record, journal, or simply just contemplate the following prompts. Perhaps at the end of it you might find your own theme or word to take you forward into a healthy and happy new year.
Let me know how you get on!
Below are your prompts and you can download them as a PDF here
You might like to consider the prompts for life as a whole, or repeat the prompts for different areas – perhaps work, family, health and wellness, projects etc.
Reflecting on the Past Year
1. What were your Highlights of the past year
For each one ask yourself:
How did they make you feel? What were their effects? How can you make more highlights in the coming year?
2. What were your Challenges of the past year
For each one ask yourself:
How did you overcome them? What has now changed? What have you learned as you dealt with them?
3. What have you learned in the past year?
Have you learned a new skill? Have you learned from an experience? Have you learned from an opportunity? Is there anything you have had to unlearn?
Intentions for the Year Ahead
1. What do you want to carry forward from last year?
2. What do you want to stop doing from the past year?
3. What do you want to start doing in the next year?
Your theme/word for the year
Is there a word/phrase/theme that comes up from your reflections above that you can use throughout the year ahead to remind you of your reflections and intentions?