Each year, I find myself a little overwhelmed in both the best and worst sense by the prospect of a New Year. I postpone any sort of new year/old year contemplation until after Christmas, which leaves me exactly one week to recenter for the upcoming year. It’s uninspired and hurried and not nearly thoughtful enough to encourage any sort of lasting change. Hence why some people have become aggressively “anti-resolutions”. And while in my experience, I have had little success with traditional resolutions, I do find that the fresh beginning of a new year provides a unique energy to reset my mind, body, and spirit. It’s important to have pillars in our calendar year that stir up questions of purpose and balance. The new year offers just that, but this sort of processing takes time. More than a week. This year I’m experimenting by devoting the entire month of January to reflection and reimagination.
I’ve been hesitant in my writing for several reasons, but the most prominent reason being a fear of feigning togetherness. I have found myself overwhelmed by the volume of people announcing that they’ve arrived at all of the answers the rest of us seem to lack. I’ve feared being categorized in that way because that’s not reflective of my heart. I write not to tell you what your journey should look like, but to share my own and encourage you as you discover your own. Erin Loechner said, “Write what you want to know. Write what you want to learn, just for the pleasure of having written it. Write because you love it, because you have something to explore and not because you have something to say.” I’ve found this to be an accurate depiction of my heart and the way that I approach writing.
So today, I’m sharing this collection of questions for reflection at the start of a new year on the chance that you might benefit alongside me from a slow month of rediscovering and reconnecting with yourself. There are thirty one questions. One for each day of the month. I predict that my own process won’t be as neat and tidy as that. Maybe you only need ten of them or one of them or none of them. Maybe you need to journal them. Maybe you need to converse over a few of them with dear friends around a fire. Allow it to serve you in whatever way you’re needing.
The best intentions I’ve set for myself historically have come from beginnings of reflection. This sort of contemplation provides roots in the reality of my own life and grounds my fluttery, idealistic self. So this collection of questions will be a dance between reflection and reimagining.
- What are you most grateful for? Where have you been finding joy in the everyday?
- When did I feel most myself?
- What did you want to do, but didn’t? Why didn’t you?
- Where did you draw inspiration from?
- Was there anything that I gave more time and energy to than I’d like?
- What went well this year? What are some things that you’re happy about?
- What did not go well? What things were hard?
- When did I feel most alive?
- When did I feel most exhausted/drained?
- What did you learn?
- Where was I giving and contributing?
- Where was a pulled towards selfishness?
- Where did I feel fulfilled?
- How did you take care of yourself physically?
- How did you take care of yourself mentally? (Were there any particular influences that stimulated your mind in a life-giving way?)
- How did you take care of yourself emotionally? (Were you aware of your emotions and what they were trying to tell you?)
- How did you take care of yourself spiritually?
- How did you take care of yourself socially/relationally? (What relationships fell apart, which ones came alive?)
- How did you waste the most time every day? What things have been distracting you from the life you long for?
- What has been a source of stress? Is there anything I can do to remove the stressor or better cope with the stress?
- What do I hope to feel this year?
- What do I want to continue to do again this year?
- What do I want to leave behind with the old year?
- How will I better care/continue caring for myself physically? (What do I want this to look like daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually?)
- How will I better care/continue caring for myself mentally? (What do I want this to look like daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually?)
- How will I better care/continue caring for myself emotionally? (What do I want this to look like daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually?)
- How will I better care/continue caring for myself spiritually? (What do I want this to look like daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually?)
- How will I better care/continue caring for myself socially/relationally? (Who would you like to connect with more? Who would you like to connect with less? What do I want this to look like daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually?)
- What do you wish you could do more of?
- What am I doing well? What do I like about the person I am and am becoming?
- How do you want to be remembered? How will you make it so?
