Happiness starts with understanding & accepting who you really are. The questions below by Shannon Kaiser are a great prompt to check in with yourself:
1. What am I holding on to that no longer feels good?
2. What have I been avoiding out of fear?
3. What dream have I ignored, but it keeps coming back to me?
4. What in my life am I forcing?
5. What skills or talents am I not using?
6. What am I afraid of?
7. What concerns am I willing to release?
8. What am I committed to changing?
9. What can I remove from my life?
10. What brings me incredible joy?
11. When do I feel like my best self?
Letting go of the perfect polish can actually help you live more
I have been reflecting on this during the last week.
I believe these questions can really help create a more fulfilling life, sometimes just through shifting our perspective on one small element of it. One of these small but fundamental realisations for me was that I hold off on launching new projects and ideas because I want to polish them first.
So what is my concern? That if I present my idea/project/post etc. to the world and someone finds a mistake in it, I will seem unprofessional.
What is my fear? That then people will not trust me or my offerings.
So I write, re-write and double check what I write, then ask a friend to proofread it, and eventually struggle to ever finish and publish it - can you relate?
I am making a commitment to myself, that once I have done the basic groundwork, I will post/launch my projects even if they are imperfect. For example, this website, this blog - they will always be work in progress. As an entrepreneur it is impossible to compete with the polished perfection of corporate products (which benefit from hundreds of eyes checking, proofreading and testing every element) - but that is also what makes my or any yogi's / entrepreneur's offerings so unique: an unpolished but real experience.
New Year's is an arbitrary point in time...
...but we may as well use it as an opportunity for pausing, reflecting and checking our trajectory. What questions have helped you reflect and come to new conclusions and new ways of thinking recently?
If you haven't taken the time yet, carve out 40 minutes for yourself today; take a notebook (doesn't have to be the perfect notebook! It can even be an email to yourself - but just do it, instead of wasting time trying to find the right notebook!) and jot down the first thoughts that come to mind to the above 11 questions; then let it go, live (and enjoy NYE!). Later, return to this when you have some time to reflect again, maybe on the 1st Jan or over this coming weekend, with a cup of your favourite brew.
As 2020 begins my wish for you is that we start stepping up more to live our most fulfilling life, accepting that it will always be a work in progress, thus inherently imperfect.
With love,
Maggie
PS: This being said, I still aim for continuous improvement, so if you see a typo, glitch or mistake on my site, please message me to let me know.
For more useful reflective questions from Shannon please see her website https://www.playwiththeworld.com/blog/