Hopefully you had a wonderful day yesterday and enjoyed the birth of a new you. That’s really what Christmas is about. If you believe that Christ is within, then Christmas is a time of birth within – the birth of a new you. This also fits with the other theory about the “end of the world” which was that it was just the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.

As we head toward 2013, are you planning on making the most of this time, this upcoming year of transformation? I hope so.  I’ve been encouraging you to take stock of where you were a year ago and compare that to where you are now. Even if you don’t think you’ve accomplished much or come very far, I ask you to look at it again from a different perspective. I’ll give you a couple of my examples even though this is difficult to set out on the internet but I want you to see how I’ve been looking at things. But first, how did I know where I was last year? I used a few tools (and encouraged myself to do more this coming year – and you know what? This might be your only desire or goal this coming year – to record what happens AND how you feel about those events almost each and every day in 2013 – at the very least once a week..but I digress).

• I used my calendar where I put everything down so that I remember what I have to do when.
• I also used my Gratitude Journal which has a section for my “gratitudes” as well as a comments section. Usually seeing something written down will spark my memory.
• I perused my email as well and got a few pointers from that.

So here’s a few examples.

Running:

• Last December I was able to run about 3 miles and that wasn’t very good. I had run my first race (a 5K) in November – first race in 11 years. I was very slow.  But in 2010 I was unable to run at all and couldn’t walk more than 1/10th of a mile without bad back pain.
• I gradually built my mileage so that by July I was able to run 18-20 miles every Sunday and did so up through October 2012 preparing for the New York City Marathon.
• My hopes for the 2012 NYC Marathon were dashed but my love for running was not so I continued to run although not the really long distances I had been running. I decided to move to half-marathons for a tiny bit of a challenge until I’m ready to ramp up for 2013 NYC marathon. I’m also planning on preparing for running ultramarathons again so yesterday I did one half-marathon and today I’ll do another – my first back to back events. You could look at the half-marathon as not much distance but the different aspect is the back to back and taking a different step forward. That’s forward motion and that’s really what we’re looking for with our lives.

Computer Application:

• The computer program I spent 2-3 years working on for work was being tested last December and there were still many things to get ready before it “went live” in March.
• I spent many hours working on that and several trips to Colorado to work with the programmers.
• We went live in March and despite the usual problems a new application will have, it worked very well.
• That’s a definite achievement in my book and gave me invaluable experience – both in planning and in creating new projects in the future.

Career:

• I had another one of those “magical” emails – a second one since 2006 where I opened it for no known reason and it changed my life.
• I enrolled in a coaching certification program. I’ve always coached people all throughout my Navy career but never been certified.
• This program also opened my eyes to the Abraham-Hicks material that I became engrossed in and have absorbed like a sponge
• I set my sites toward retirement from my Army job in order to work full time in my coaching practice. Most everything I’ve done since May has been directed along those lines – with that goal in mind.
• I joined another program in November – for those with Coaching businesses so I’m putting my ducks in a row there.
• These are positive steps for me again headed forward.

This is just a simple list of the primary events in my life this past year. What’s missing is the emotions  that accompanied each section and each forward (or backward) step – and all of these events had both forward AND backward steps. The emotions and feelings are vital for you to put down in order to determine where you are right now.

I’ll give you a shocking (to me) example. This was a very strange experience for me. I hadn’t been swimming in about 1 1/2 years. But I had the urge to do so the other day. So I went to the gym and got in the water and started swimming. I used to love to do laps. But I was BORED. I  still can’t believe it but it’s not something that I actually miss – I just thought I missed it. If you had asked me about my emotions surrounding swimming a week ago they would have consisted of words like “excitement”, “enthusiasm”, “happiness”, etc. Now my emotions are very blah – bored, take it or leave it, can’t see what all the hype is about, etc. To me, this is the most dramatic shift in my thoughts and feelings I’ve ever experienced. The point is, though, that you have to put feelings with this inventory you’re taking so that you’ll know what truly is something you’re excited about and want to continue to have as a part of your life.

Since we still have about a week until 2013 dawns, continue to work on your list – you will narrow it down, take inventory and then we’ll talk about making it more specific. But today, between returning presents and cleaning up, I’d like you to write down that inventory so you can see where you were, what you’ve done and how far you’ve come in the past year. Will you try that for me? I’m positive you’ll be glad you did!

Terrie