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A Mindful Approach to the New Year That Can Support You Year-Round
Discover the Power of Starting Fresh, Moment by Moment, in 2024: Three Tools and Eight Quotes for Intentional Living
Brandon McPeak
January 24, 2024
It’s 2024! I mean, no big news there, huh?
We’re a few weeks (and change) into this new year. Perhaps a bit late to tell you Happy New Year. Though, what do you think—is it too late to embrace the spirit of the New Year holiday?
We all know the New Year as an opportunity to start again. It’s a handy point of transition that can help us approach our lives fresh, with realigned intentions, new eyes, and an open heart.
Yet so is each day and each moment a chance to start again.
Whether you set goals, intentions, and resolutions for the new year (or not!) ... whether you feel you have already made strides in evolution in 2024 (or not!) ... it’s okay. It’s never too late to start again.
So, no matter where you are, no matter how you are, from moment to moment, day to day, there’s an incredible holiday to celebrate…
Happy New Day! 🌄
TODAY’S EDITION
On this new day and in this edition, we lean heavily on the wisdom of those who came before us. We look for the ever-present opportunities to return to the moment, to the breath, to love, and to your unfolding life with a bit more clarity of mind and openness of heart.
So today, let’s get in touch with this moment and this new day while cultivating a healthier relationship to the future, with:
A heavier dose of wise quotes from ancient and some more contemporary teachers to help us return to the moment with a lighter heart and more open mind
Three powerful printout resources I use to help me set and stay aligned with purposeful intentions for how I want to live and where I want to direct my energy
Some Good News links for the new year, to help us take heart, get in touch with gratitude, and cultivate a mindset attuned to positive potential for the day and the year
Again, I wish you—Happy New Day!
Each morning, we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.
What will you do today? It doesn’t need to be “big”. Can you simply root yourself deeper in your life with new eyes and renewed love?
It doesn’t matter what you’re focused on, whether it’s inner or outer work. If it is aligned (or aligning) with your values, with positive intention, with a vision for how you’ll live or what you’ll do, remind yourself this regardless of how you feel about your progress:
I have not failed, I've just found 1,000 ways that won't work.
Take heart, take satisfaction, every time you return to the effort(s) at hand.
Ever feel overcome with fears, uncertainties, doubts about your ability to attain your soul’s true aims? You don’t need to worry. Attainment is simple:
Satisfaction lies in the effort, not the attainment. Full effort is full attainment.
What is full effort? It helps to say what it isn’t: it is not relentless, it is not unyielding, it is not perfect. We will stumble. We need to pause. We need the space in which to return.
Full effort is undertaken in earnest, with our hearts and minds as invested as their capacity allows, nothing held back out of fear or apathy. Full effort leaves nothing incomplete before the final conclusion.
And it has nothing to do with speed.
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
Confucius shared these words of wisdom about pacing, follow through, and quitting to help us see—any pace is a good pace, any pause is a good pause, as long as you do not stop. That is, as long as you do not quit for good before the thing and the moment is ripe to set aside for good.
Don’t quit. Yet also, don’t hurry.
We’re here to do things, yes. To struggle, to grow, to evolve.
And we’re also here to experience things—life, love, beauty, and even silence amidst all the noise of doing and becoming. To rest in the sweet paradox that while we’re here to do and experience and become, we’re already enough, life is already enough, this moment is already enough.
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.
So, rest. And then return. Hear the call of both the now and the future that can only be heard in this moment.
You can set yourself to the work of your future, while firmly rooted here, now.
The best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment.
So, pause and take a breath. Then exhale: go back out. Meet this day and this next messy moment, where you can find the power to decide what your existence will be.
Man does not simply exist, but always decides what his existence will be and what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.
I have three tools to share with you, below, with the understanding that we can author our lives and our moment-to-moment experience, with the right tools.
These are tools I use to help me set aligned intentions and resolutions each year then to stay aligned (and sometimes realign when I get off track) to those personal intentions and commitments.
Before I share these resources, one final piece of wisdom to help us pursue our aims for higher being without losing sight of the profound “enough-ness” of ourselves and the present moment:
Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.
In the spirit of this wisdom, I share the below resources, which might help you take more slow and steady steps toward your higher being while experiencing that fact that you and your present experience are enough.
First, I want to remind you about a helpful resource that can bring you back to your body and to the present during those times when past wounds and future worries loom large.
Virtual EMDR makes Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy (one of the most scientifically validated techniques to treat trauma, anxiety, and depression) more accessible to more people:
BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Virtual EMDR
Affordable, accessible, anonymous EMDR Therapy with no need for a therapist or appointment. Their self-guided program provides fast relief from depression, anxiety, PTSD, panic attacks, grief, and addiction.
EMDR is one of several techniques explored in tool two of my guide 10 Tools for Healing & Growth. I pulled parts one and two of the guide, covering therapy resources and techniques, into a stand-alone PDF here, in case you want to learn more.
Here are some other resources to help you set, clarify, refine, or renew your intentions for your life in 2024:
TOOLS FOR LIFE 🧰
Life Vision and Commitment Workbook: a resource I revisit every year to establish an aligned vision for my life and my moment-to-moment experience, then set an achievable plan for progress.
Routine & Ritual Planner: a resource to help you design a supportive routine or ritual. Routines are typically approached as a collection of habits you do in sequence, such as a morning routine—the most important routine, in my opinion and experience! Use the back for notes and ideas, then outline the sequence/timing of steps of your routine in the space on the front.
Monthly Habit Tracker: a simple tool for tracking habits (such as doing a morning routine) from day to day, for a month. It both serves as a reference/checklist to help you remember the habits you’re working on and a source of motivation and clarity.
Tip: treat checking a habit on the tracker as a win but don’t beat yourself up when you miss. Perfection is not the goal. To help this be a constructive tool, see it as mindfulness practice: when you get off track, simply make note, and return.
And lastly, some new-year good news for you!
GOOD NEWS 🙌
Today, an extra dose of good news and other feel-good links to help you approach 2024 with mindfulness, acceptance, and belief in the positive possibilities ahead:
Until next time, wishing you a happy new moment!
Warmly,
Brandon
P.S. Did you enjoy this message? Did it bring you value, by way of wisdom, a new perspective, or a simple smile?
I’d love to hear about it! Please respond with your thoughts about what I’m doing with this newsletter and how it’s affecting you. Whether you have words of affirmation or recommendations for something I could do differently, please reach out and let me know!
Forward it to someone whom you think might also get a smile or a kick out of this message.
P.P.S. If your mental health is a domain of life you want to put energy into this year, remember Virtual EMDR. EMDR is a powerful therapeutic technique and with Virtual EMDR’s self-guided program*, it’s a highly accessible resource to build a new habit around.
* Disclosure: this is an affiliate link, where I make a small commission if you sign up. But I would not share it if I was not a true believer!