To be honest, I never used to care much for New Year’s. For me it ranked low on the list of holidays. The sparkles and cheers and midnight kisses were fun, I supposed, but the night often felt a little anticlimactic, forced. A sad follow-up to the BEST holiday only one week before; the cruel reminder that returning to school or work was just around the corner after a glorious break; a calendar date that made me feel lame if I didn’t have super-cool plans. For a really long time, I really could have done without New Year’s.
But then I got old, and I started to LOVE it. I remember when it was, too—January 2011, my first January working full-time at the big commercial real estate company. I realized something that year: Brand-new years are a really big deal for businesses. There are new budgets, new strategies, new plans, new goals, new themes, new processes, new ideas, new energy. New, new, NEW! Go team, go team, GO! Everyone is generally really excited, especially higher leadership. No matter the struggles or failures or not-quite-hit targets from previous months, the past year disappears as a boundless, exciting, blank new one sprawls ahead like a fresh roll of Emerson’s drawing paper. The days are READY to be colored on, etched; to hold the things that will mark the new year.
That sense of possibility and excitement was contagious and motivating for me in both work and personal ways. Our division president at the time, a wonderful leader, brilliant man and strong Christian, suggested to everyone on a conference call that we define goals every January, write them down and revisit them often. He explained that each year, he personally does so in each of the following buckets, “the 5 Fs”, to create goals and accountability:
- Faith
- Family
- Finances
- Fitness
- Firm (i.e., work, whatever that means to you)
This guy had an MBA from Harvard and a bold faith in God, so I figured he knew some things. GUYS. Since Doug and I adopted this practice, we both have crazy-looked-forward to January each year, almost as much as Christmas. And we don’t call them New Year’s resolutions, because I’ve never once kept one of those. Instead, we call it New Year’s vision casting, because we’re cheeseballs because that’s a phrase both corporate America and big churches love to use, and we’ve spent a lot of time in both of those places so it makes us smile and laugh. Plus, categories are GREAT, because if you fail in one, you might totes EXCEL in another, you know?! I’m kidding, but it’s a little bit true. The broader categories provide a framework of hope, motivation and possibility.
And when we do this, it’s not about listing ways to strive harder and be better and beat ourselves over the head with big expectations. It’s about dreaming together as we begin anew with an untouched collection of days that will turn into weeks, months and memories.
Also, I do well with structure and plans, and this helps me along. I usually have two or three goals in each category, but here some of mine for this year:
- Faith: Spend time alone with God every day, whether it’s five minutes or 15 or an hour.
- Family: Focus on the present—my remaining months as a mom to just Emerson, the experience of birthing another little girl into this big bright world, adjusting to life as a mother of two. Don’t race ahead; stay slow; soak in the moments.
- Finances: Stick to my allotted monthly budget for Starbucks, manicures, clothes, other treats. NOTE: GROWTH AREA.
- Fitness: Be nice to myself when I give birth to a baby in June, smack-dab-mid bikini season. Remember—we’ve been through this before—baby weight doesn’t come off in a week. Eat right, exercise regularly and lose the weight in a healthy manner. Be patient! Be kind! It will happen. I hope.
- Firm: Write something substantial every week. A freelance assignment, a blog post, a heartfelt email, a longwinded prayer. Writing is my work and my love, but it’s easy to set aside. So I’m setting the goal: keep at it!!!
While “vision casting” tends to be my focus for New Year’s, I also find it so incredibly valuable to reflect on what happened the previous year. What did I learn? How did I grow? What was hard? Good, bad, surprising, weird? And then I try to wrap up the year in a theme or a single word.
For me, 2014 was all about everything New. So many exciting new things! New job for my husband. New home for our family. New baby on the way. So many new friends. New position in leadership with MOPS. Even a new car (FINALLY! A GMC Acadia for this mom—such a great choice! I’m actually really passionate about it! Maybe there’s another post coming on my search for the perfect mom car!).
Every year can’t be quite as full of this kind of “newness.” Otherwise, we’d constantly be moving and starting new jobs and having more kids and going totally broke. This was a banner year in a LOT of ways for us.
But, this past year also held a lot of new sad things. Learning what it felt like to lose a pregnancy. Navigating hard seasons when God seemed silent and far. Having two of my siblings move away after a lifetime of having them close. As I get older, I’m realizing that every single year will hold these kind of new things: growing pains, losses and shocks. And every year, I want to remember this, and pray for the strength to forge ahead no matter what happens in my Faith, my Family, my Fitness (I mean, I guess I could fall off a treadmill or something), my Finances, my Firm. I love these words from Jesus in John 16:33:
“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
You’re probably getting sick of my obsession with New Years, but just one more thing! Every New Year’s I also make a list of books I really want to read, at least 12, one per month, though I usually end up reading a lot more than that. Here is my list so far—and I’d absolutely love your suggestions!!!
- Yes, Please by Amy Poehler—I love Amy Poehler to the moon and back. And if her book is half as good as the rave reviews or Tina Fey’s Bossypants, I will swoon.
- Small Victories by Anne Lamott—Oh, Anne. You’re the BEST. I can’t wait to read your latest.
- The Strong-Willed Child by Dr. James Dobson—My mom watches Emerson one day a week. A few months ago, she gave me this book as something I might really, really want to consider reading. I laughed so hard I cried. My daughter is fierce. I need to read this book like yesterday.
- Dark Places by Gillian Flynn—My good friend recommended this one to me because of my love for Gone Girl (same author!) and pretty much any dark, mysterious, twisty-plotted, mind-bending masterpiece. I’m 10 pages in and I’m hooked!
- An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor—I’m always looking for amazing faith writers to read and I’ve heard so much good about BBT. She was listed in TIME Magazine’s 2014 list of The Most 100 Influential People in the World. I’m ready to get to know her!
That’s all for 2014! Thank you so much for reading, my friends! Love you all! Happy New Year!
