I am not a big fan of New Years Resolutions. At any point in your life, you can start over. You can reset. You can go again. But with the start of a new calendar year, and after a period of festive reflection, now is as good a time as any to make plans and to refocus your thinking. Particularly given that we are two years into a global pandemic, the like of which none of us as seen before. Regardless of what you think about the cause, the governmental response, vaccines, or when it is likely to end, there is no denying that it has been very disruptive to our ‘normal’ way of being. As we get ready to launch ourselves into 2022 how should we plan, what should we focus on, and what should we do?
Plan to be adaptable. It is a well-known axiom of military strategy that ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy.’ You should have a plan, and at the same time you should be prepared to flex your plans as you take action, and as you gather more information. If now is a good time for you to lay down some ideas, set some goals, schedule some events or activities, then go right ahead and do so. But also make sure that you are not too attached to the outcome working out in the future the way that you imagine it right now. Be prepared to go with the flow. We often experience negative emotions in our lives about outcomes simply because we were too attached to a particular outcome in the first place. Sometimes things in our lives need to ‘fall apart’ so that they can be reconstructed anew. And we need to make sure that we allow events in our lives to unfold. The path of least resistance in our lives does not always, or even usually, look like a straight line.
As those of you who have done training with me will know I am very interested in history, global events, and future possibilities for humanity. I have been training NLP for over 16 years and since I started, I have said that the world is going through a fundamental change in our lifetime. I could quite easily run off a list of potential challenges that we a likely to face over the next 10 years (I never predicted a pandemic though). But right now as we move into 2022 what we might potentially face over the next ten years is not important. What is important is where you choose to focus your thinking this year. Events in our lives do not come with a built-in meaning. We choose what things mean by comparing the situation with what we have experienced before, and what we could imagine experiencing. And we do this unconsciously. But begin to notice how you are evaluating things that you experience. Everything that happens in your life can be used positively or negatively. So, focus on your positives. And if things look negative in your life, or in the world, imagine how it could have a positive effect in the long term.
Of course, the actions that you take this year will very much depend on you and your life. But as we move forward into this year let your actions demonstrate your willingness to both take responsibility for your life and to invest in your own learning and growth. Taking responsibility for your life is about accepting that wherever you feel your life is right now, and what maybe caused it to be like this, the one person that is going to catalyse any change is you. Investing in your own learning and growth is about broadening your understanding of human life and deepening your understanding of yourself. I believe that at its root the change that is happening on the planet right now is grounded in personal development. Work on yourself so that events don’t end up working on you.
To finish here is a little bit of ‘out-there’ positivity for you. Numerology is the study of the symbology of numbers. It gets associated with astrology and tarot in a divination sense. In Numerology one adds numbers together to boil a date down into a single number. By this understanding 2022 is a ‘6’ year. As such it represents heart, the ability to support, to nurture, and to heal. Empathy and emotional relationships are supported by the number 6. As we embark on a new year let’s take a little bit of this ‘6’ heart and healing with us for ourselves, our families, friends, and the planet.
“Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.” Zig Ziglar
