Hello 2015 // How do you greet the new year?

It is the first day of the first month of a brand new year. We all get a clean slate. Anything is possible. 2015 is here and so is the time for making resolutions for the new year and taking stock of the old one.

I don’t believe in new years resolutions. Mostly because they never sound very friendly “lose weight”, “exercise more”, “stop smoking” or “quit sugar”. But I do love the intention behind it. The urge to do better, eat healthier and find more joy. So instead of new year resolutions, I make new year intentions.

There is something about this time of year that makes most of us ponder more deeply on our lives. Am I where I want to be? Where do I want to go from here? How can I make this (dream) happen? There is something very beautiful about these sentiments. Often we forget about them once January arrives and day-to-day life takes over and overwhelms us with chores, work and projects. The trick to actually make some of these things come true is to take each wish and make it into a plan. And to put intention behind it.

For the third year in a row I am using Susannah Conway’s Unravelling the Year Ahead workbook to do so. It is a free and very usable workbook (you just download, print and start writing), that Susannah makes every year. It has had profound meaning in my life. I have always scribbled my intentions and wished for the new year down – and even written a goodbye to the old year many times, but never something as organised as this.

I first discovered this amazing tool via the ever so sweet sewing genius Astrid on Instagram in december 2012 – and I’ve been hooked ever since. 2012 was a very hard year for me. The work book helped me to let go, say goodbye and make peace with (some of) my challenges and to set clear goals for what I wanted out of the year ahead. At the end of 2013 it was a great feeling getting my workbook out and looking at what I had set out to do and what I had actually accomplished throughout the year. And it has been so again this year.

We often think of the big things in life as life changing. Deaths, births, weddings, graduations and so on. But the truth is that they only happen ever so often in life and they are certainly not the only things that change our lives.

I’ve found that most of the time change hides in the small beginnings. In the determination to do something different and in the perseverance of practice and taking small steps again and again toward your goals – even or especially when the road ahead seems long and winding. It takes time to build a career, a blog, a life or to change a habit, lose 20 pounds or learn to dance – to name a few examples. These can be just as life chancing as the big things. Taking stock and writing them down once a year will help you see them more clearly. So I am working on unravelling 2015 as we speak. The 2014 goodbyes are complete and I am contemplating my goals and wishes for 2015. I wanted to share this with you in the hope that it will be a profound new year’s tool for you too.

I hope that 2015 will be a year full of love, joy, happy moments, growth, good health and plenty of inspiration for all of us. Here’s to a colourful and happy 2015. Happy New Year, friends x

P.S. I said my goodbyes to 2014 on the blog over here in case you missed it.

© that nordic feeling

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