Her words rung out during our client call: I don’t want to even think about the year. I just want it to end so that I can start over for 2018! As her personal coach, we had some work to do to help her to assess her year with truth and grace.
Life is a mixture of joys and pains, blessings and challenges, opportunities and stressors. It’s easy to want to escape the year and run into a new one. There’s a jubilee feeling about waking up on January 1st!
new year
new beginnings
new opportunities
It’s the thought of a second chance to accomplish what you didn’t accomplish the previous year. It’s exhilarating, right? Social media posts, television commercials, magazine rack advertisements fill us with anticipation, expectation, and excitement that this will be a GREAT YEAR!
I believe it will be a great year however, you will also face challenges and, if you don’t assess your current year you may experience three things:
Repeat the mistakes from the previous year
Lack a vision for the year so you will worry, wonder and waste time
Miss opportunities for personal, family and professional growth
I don’t believe God gives us purpose to worry, wonder and waste time. Sometimes the battles we face are due to circumstances that are out of our control and other times it’s due to choices we make or didn’t make.
You have the opportunity to assess your year. Flesh out what’s working and what’s not but even deeper than that, look at where you are personally, spiritually and relationally with God, yourself and others. That will have a great impact on your life now and in the coming year.
The key is to assess your current year with TRUTH and GRACE. That means as you look back over the year tell yourself the absolute truth. Don’t be afraid to say, this didn’t work because I didn’t work it…I didn’t do my part. Accountability is crucial to our growth. It may be difficult in certain areas but it’s important. As a wife, mother, grandma, sister, business owner, and leader I have to be accountable to God, to myself, my hubby and family and those whom I serve. It helps me to be better and to do better.
Grace is what we need as we tell ourselves the truth. In other words, don’t beat yourself up for not doing what you needed to do this year. And certainly, don’t beat yourself up for the situations that were out of your control. Give yourself the grace to grow. I think I’ll say that again, give yourself the grace to grow!
Exercise for you to do to assess your year with truth and grace:
Take 60 minutes from your day. Yes, 60 minutes. You can do that and your LIFE is worth it. Go to a quiet place. Turn your cell phone and social media notifications off. Take a deep breath. You can do it! Use those 60 minutes to assess your year. Break it out into groups that are important to you. Here are a few of my own:
Relationship with God
Care of myself and family
Relationships that are important to me
My ministry-business
Financial goals
Then ask yourself some important questions and give honest answers. Below are a few that I work through with my clients:
- How have I involved God in my life this year?
- What were my prayers and goals for each category as I entered this year?
- What are the areas I see growth and positive change?
- What hasn’t been accomplished yet?
- What’s my participation in the areas that haven’t been accomplished yet?
- What help do I need to make changes now and into the new year?
- What are FIVE things I celebrate from this current year?
I end with five things to celebrate because five is the number of grace. I want to be sure to give myself grace for the year and to teach my clients to do the same. I don’t want to just reflect on what didn’t happen but on what did. Be sure to celebrate big and small accomplishments. They will also help propel you forward!
Take a moment and share with me FIVE things you are celebrating this year? If I can be of help to you as your coach with fleshing out your year with truth and grace reach out HERE. I’d love to hear from you!
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