The silver lining of 2020 is we learned what is really important. And I’m sure you’ve been asking yourself questions about your life and your future.

We can’t know what the future holds. We can make New Year’s resolutions, devise plans, and create goals that can be thwarted by, say, a pandemic. But that doesn’t mean we don’t forge ahead and create a life vision for the future. All we can do is take in all the new information and all the hard-won lessons we’ve learned and give birth to new life.

I like to start off the New Year with a letter to my future self as if I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do in the year ahead. So when I read the letter on New Year’s Eve 2021, I can see what went according to plan and what I had to adjust for. It’s nice to get your vision written down and see how much you’ve grown and changed in one year.

So, in order to write the letter I’ve come up with a few questions we can ask ourselves to develop an outline for exactly what we want from the year ahead. We’re just getting yourself into an imaginative mindset to envision your dreams and what you’d like to experience and create for yourself this year. This is not an extensive or exhaustive list so feel free to add or subtract anything you want. This is your vision!

To start off, the most important question in my opinion:

What would you like to make the theme or overarching emotion of your year in 2021?

What do you want to feel? Joyful? Peaceful? Connected? Powerful? Successful? Chose an emotion you would like to spend more time in.

Now how are you going to achieve that? Think of all the areas of life. What could you be doing that would bring you more joy, peace, connection, power, success, or whatever emotion you chose.

Let’s look at each area more closely.

Connection to Self: Character & Values 

You are the foundation of everything in your life.

It all starts with you. Your Self. Your character.

We all want to be proud of the person we are. And to make sure that we can say that we are proud we should be asking ourselves a few questions.

Let’s pull out the journal!

What type of person are you? What would you like to be known for? What are your values? What is important to you?

Take a look at all the people you look up to and figure out if they have that certain something in common. Maybe they exude self-respect and confidence. Maybe they are laid back and don’t care what other people think of them. Maybe they are filled with a celebratory, playful energy that fills the room and lifts spirits. Or maybe they are passionate about a cause and stand up to be heard no matter who they’re up against. There is a reason we gravitate to certain personalities.

Are these the qualities you would like to aspire to? Who do you want to become? What character do you want to consciously build in 2021?

 

Health: Nutrition, Fitness & Body Care

This section can be split up into a few categories depending on what your goals are: nutrition, fitness, and general body care.

When you ask yourself what your health goals are it may help you to ask the feeling question again.

How do you want to feel in your body?

Do you want more energy? Do you want to stop the pains in your back? Do you want to feel younger and more vibrant? Do you want the confidence of clear skin? Do you want to feel sexy? Strong? Graceful? Powerful? Less anxious?

Now that you know what you would like to feel health-wise in 2021, we can get more specific.

What kind of nutritional diet would you need in order to achieve those feelings? For example, if you want the confidence that comes with clear skin, eat for that. Do some research on the areas in this category that you would like to improve over the year.

Create a menu of the “perfect” day of eating. Now it’s time for goal setting. DON’T try to eat perfectly from now until forever. If you change too much too soon, you’ll just become overwhelmed with all the changes, new recipes, cooking, and sugar withdrawals that you’ll end up quitting before giving it a real chance to change you.

Instead, eat just one of those “perfect” healthy meals a week. Then build up to 3 times per week. Then one extremely healthy meal a day. Slowly. Make the goal to eat lots more greens instead of cutting out your favorites.

Pretty soon you’ll be changing your habits and nixing the junk because you feel so much better.

What are your fitness goals? This is a topic that a lot of people really don’t want to pay much attention to and I was the same way. I always hated “fitness” and “exercise.”

BUT I love to dance. I love hiking. I love walking. Yoga isn’t too bad either 😉

These are things that I can stick to because they are fun for me and I can incorporate at least 20 minutes of them into my every day. Even if you just throw on a YouTube video and dance like a fool, that is a great way to get your body moving.

Start small. Make your goal in this area just 15 minutes of “fun” 3 times a week. Achieving that will make you feel good and further motivate you to do more once you see that you can accomplish it.

When it comes to general body care, these goals can include things like making sure you go to your dentist appointment, start oil pulling, treating your body with special creams and oils, or even making your own toiletries so that you aren’t using absorbing so many toxic chemicals through your skin, or creating a beauty routine. Anything hygiene goes here.

 

Mental, Emotional & Spiritual Health

Just as important as taking care of our body, we need to be taking care of our mind, emotions, and spirit.

Do you want to have a clear head? A light heart? Do you want to feel more grounded and centered? What are your goals in this area?

I put all of these together because they are so personal and “intangible.” However, they are all linked to the body in their own ways. Thoughts, emotions, traumas, and memories get stuck in the body. The body is actually a map of the subconscious mind.

This is why I’m such a fan of dance, yoga, and trauma-release exercises. If we are able to locate painful emotions stored in the body and work them out, we can release them so that they don’t continue to cause physical issues (as well as psychological and relationship issues).

It might also be helpful to create your own individualized spiritual practice to help you connect to yourself, nature, the universe, and/or god.

This could look like prayer, meditation, sitting in nature, fully experiencing the sunrise, reading spiritual texts, creating rituals of gratitude – it’s all up to you.

Maybe you would like to start learning more tools to ease anxiety or to boost your mood, or help you focus and be more disciplined. Perhaps you want to take up shadow work or process your past trauma in order to better live in the now.

 

 

 

Relationships & Social Engagement

 

 

Human connection is more important than ever. 2020 hit us hard in this department and it seems that we should be prepared for more shutdowns, quarantines, and isolation. It’s important that we figure out how we will stay connected and maintain all our relationships.

There’s FaceTime, Skype, zoom, and Netflix watch parties. I know it’s not the same but we need to come up with alternative ways to communicate and connect as the world changes.

I think we all should strive to reach out and think of others during difficult times. Loneliness is becoming an epidemic and it has a crippling effect on mental health.

Who are the people in your life that are the most important to you? How can you support them? Do you have room in your life to join more groups, organizations, or clubs? How will you fulfill your social needs this year?

Finances

This was never my favorite category because it’s my weakest. And that’s exactly why I’ve decided to make this my focus this year.

I’m sure most of us want to feel secure, stable, and abundant financially. How are we going to achieve that? Can you feel grateful for what you already have? Are you creating savings and paying off debt? How will you go about making more money? Are you able to build up savings for emergencies? Is it right for you to be investing right now?

These are tough questions after the year we’ve had. Millions went on unemployment. Millions still have not found work or can’t work. Businesses have shut down. Savings have been depleted. Ouch, 2020.

But I know that persistence, creativity, studying new things, gaining new skills, and adapting to the changing economy will help get you on track. You need to find a strategy for that. What will be your focus?

Creativity

What do you want to give the world? It doesn’t have to be huge. Maybe you love pottery. Maybe you want to help your nephew learn how to read. Or maybe you have big plans to become a doctor or scientist who specializes in new viruses. Maybe you want to get back into graphic design and help people create their own brand.

Whatever it is, human imagination and creativity give us meaning in life. We can all create something. And that’s amazing. What are some of the things that you’d like to commit to every week to build something that can help others? What is inside you that needs to be expressed? How will you express it?

We have an idea in our heads that no one else can see until we manifest it in physical form or share it with others. Make it real!

Take your dreams and make them a reality.

Dear Future Self…

These were just some ideas to get the juices flowing. Now you’re ready to create your letter!

Begin as your Present Self, writing to your Future Self as if the whole year has already happened and you are proud of yourself for having achieved your vision for the year.

Don’t read it until New Year’s Eve one year later and see how much you were able to do, what plans were changed, what you can do better, and if you created your vision. Maybe you need to rewrite dreams that really just didn’t fit. And that’s positive too! Anything that helps you hone in on what you really want out of life is a plus. That’s what this whole exercise is about.

Tell us in the comments what your overall theme for the coming year will be! What are you focused on? What are your biggest goals this year? I’d love to know!

 

Have fun with this and Happy New Year!