January 1st Feeling All Year..

People are mixed in how they feel about New Years intentions. I love them. And any time we have an opportunity for a “fresh start” - the fresh start of a day, a week, or a season. It’s a great opportunity to wipe yesterday clean. Let it go to make space for what we desire. It can feel hard to maintain the momentum up even after the “Fresh Start” effect starts to wear off. But it doesn’t have to be so hard. We just need to take a brutally honest look at some facets of our life that we may not really want to see.

One is what we consume. A lot of people focus in January on what we consume in through our mouth, but I am thinking more of the totality of what we consume - media we consume, conversations we consume, the negative or complaining thoughts from others or our own negative internal thoughts or patterns. All we consume becomes part of us - part of our subconscious patterns that reflect the way we see the world and our place in it. They create what we focus on and what we repeat. They are part and parcel of our daily habits - physical and mental.

And two, which is related to #1, is whose views, opinions, information and beliefs we are consuming. Who are we hanging out with, what do they believe, what messaging are they imparting to us about how our world looks, what is possible and not possible for us? Whose beliefs are we are continuously signing up for?

While it would be great if we were surrounded by like-minded community in the office, at the line at the bank, coffee shop, or post office, with all our family and friends, this is unfortunately not the case for most of us. It is far easier to “bond” with people over what’s wrong, what isn’t working, or negative feelings like fear, hopelessness, or victim consciousness. This is because our brains have the “negativity bias” that makes it far easier to collect negative stories and limiting beliefs about ourselves or others than believe new ones.

If we spend the majority of our time with people who contribute to our own limiting beliefs or want to convince us that what we want to build in our careers, our health or our lives is not possible, we are making it really damn hard to keep our New Years intentions beyond a few weeks. Community can either facilitate or shut down growth. It can create new or innovative ideas or solutions or can shut them down in an instant. Community can encourage us to try something new or step out of our comfort zone. And the life we truly desire is likely right outside of our comfort zone.

 While I like to think I am a really competent teacher and coach which is why I have almost all repeat clients, I know that the number one reason why people keep coming back is the people they meet. The conversations they have. The barriers that come down. The light that gets in. It’s all about the company we keep. The conversations we have. The beliefs that we share. When this is is positive, growth-oriented and negative belief system- busting, it makes it waaaaay easier to get to where we want to. Because we are on a boat with a lot of similar riders who also know the way and have other ideas about how to stay afloat to get to the shore.

Life is so busy that we rarely give ourselves the space to retreat away from the way we normally do things. It is also culturally acceptable to bail out on our goals, dreams, and desires right at the thing start to get tough or we don’t get immediate results.It is totally normal to quit on ourselves before the game has even begun.

So let’s not do that. Let’s not quit on ourselves. Let’s not sign up for co-creating with people who think our dreams are too unrealistic, or too big, or too weird. Or too impossible. Let’s hang out with people and have conversations about how we forge a new path forward.