Hi everyone!
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
It's Aileen.
Today I'm going to bring you
five questions to help you reflect on the past year and plan for the new year.
I hope you're ready to plan for 2018 like I am.
I'm so excited for next year.
I feel like, I don't know why.
I just like the number 2018.
I feel like it's a good luck number.
It's even, it's pretty.
There's a lot of circles in the number for some reason.
I just really like it.
These are all questions that I've asked myself at the end of the year
for the past five or more years.
I used to do this digitally on my Day One app on my phone.
And sometimes I would journal it out.
More recently, I've created this Artist of Life Workbook.
Where is it?
It's upside down, here it is!
This Artist of Life Workbook to help
go through these questions, and you know what, this workbook goes a lot more in-depth
in the new year planning and reflecting, and all of that stuff.
So today's five questions are kind of a taste of what you would expect
from this Artist of Life Workbook.
So let's get started.
First question: What were my highlights of 2017?
And highlights could mean
your accomplishments, the things that you're most proud of.
It could even be
the memories that you've had, the best memories that you've had of your year.
And it doesn’t have to be an accomplishment or something big.
It could just be like a smile that someone gave you.
It could be something simple,
just any moment of joy, any moment that you want to remember.
And I love collecting my year's highlights because that's how I look back on my year.
I have a really bad memory, guys, so I write everything down.
I use my Day One app to log daily journal entries, just to bullet point what I did that
day.
And at the end of each month, I'll collect my highlights from that month.
And at the end of the year, I'll look through my monthly highlights
and collect the highlights of that year.
I know, I'm very meticulous about that
because that's how I collect my most precious memories.
And if I don't write it down,
I'm gonna forget it.
You know, human's memory is pretty unreliable, if you don't know that.
So I don't know, I like to write down my highlights, the memories that I want to keep,
because these are the things that I’m gonna have with me for the rest of my life.
Second question: What about 2017 am I most grateful for?
Have some time to sit down,
take out your journal, and have a ball.
Really just list out as much as you can,
everything that you're grateful for, for this past year because I'm sure that
a lot of great things have happened to you this year.
Even if some bad things
happened to you this year, like some challenges or obstacles.
Think of what good might have come from these negative experiences
and what you're grateful for, related to that.
Gratitude has such a huge influence
on our happiness and how we feel about our lives looking back.
Ultimately, two people can be reading the same story and interpreting it in different
ways.
Using gratitude, you can interpret your own story through the eyes of love and positivity,
and feel good about yourself and your experiences, rather than just focusing on the negative.
Now let's cross over to the new year for our next question: What is your theme for 2018?
I don't know if you've seen my previous videos.
I make a video
on my new year theme every year.
I'll post the videos down below.
But a new year theme is a word or phrase that you want to be your compass for the year.
Think about, what do you need more of in your life?
So my theme for 2017 was space.
I wanted more space, more breathing room in my life in general
because I felt like at the end of 2016, I was really hustling hard
and I was deep in work just really not taking a moment to enjoy life and be mindful.
So previously, my themes have been patience and perseverance.
Or boldness.
One year I wanted to just be bold in everything that I did.
So every year, ask yourself:
What do I need?
What do I want to invite into my life?
And make that your theme.
Question #4: How do I want to evolve and grow in 2018?
This is the fun part.
This is the part where you put on your dreamer hat.
My dreamer hat is always on.
But just think about how you want to grow, how you want to change,
what difference do you want to make in your life?
How do you want to see yourself
at the end of 2018?
December 2018, exactly one year from now, where do you want to be?
How do you want your life to look like in all of these different areas?
My last question is: What areas do you want to focus on in 2018
and what are your goals in those specific areas?
I know a lot of us like to do
everything at once.
We want to believe that we can grow in all these different areas
at the same time, at the same rate.
But in reality, that's not how life works.
Life is kind of like a push and pull where you have to make certain sacrifices
in this area if you want to grow in this area.
And it's just the truth
that we can't multitask as well as we think we can.
And we can't accomplish
everything at once.
You have to do things one at a time.
So start to think about
what areas do you want to focus on first?
Well, maybe you can focus on this area
for the first month and this area for the second month.
Or maybe focus on an area
for three months at a time.
It's totally up to you.
To help you brainstorm,
the areas could be health, self-care, career, relationships, your money,
spirituality, creativity.
It could be whatever you want.
But ultimately decide
what areas of your life do you want to focus on growing first.
It's kind of like,
what flower do you want to water first in your garden of life?
[Phone ring]
Oh my gosh.
That was such a good phrase that my phone just rang.
Ugh, so sorry.
But anyway, after you decide what areas you want to focus on,
decide what goals you have in those specific areas.
And when setting your goals,
it's best to be as specific as possible.
Set a deadline for this goal.
Set an amount if you can quantify your goal in any way.
The clearer your goal is,
the better.
And then after you set your goals, the rest of it is breaking down your goals
into actionable steps, and then taking action on those steps.
I know it's easier said than done, but that's how you do it.
Everything is done
by just putting in the work, just taking those baby steps, you know?
Create a to-do list for each goal and then pick one thing off the list,
and work on it today.
There's no real secret to getting your goals done.
It really is taking action.
Setting your goals, and the rest is "Can you take action?
Can you be consistent?
Can you be patient?
Can you persevere?"
And all of that I've talked about on my channel in various videos and various podcasts
which I'll link below.
I'll link a whole playlist related to new year videos.
And yeah, I hope you guys have a beautiful new year.
Happy holidays, and I'll see you guys in the next one.
Bye!