I hope you are still enjoying the glow and spirit of the holidays and letting these warm you from the inside out.  What’s true for me is that in order to step fully into the opportunities, promise and potential of a new year, it helps to bring the old one to an end, to name the ending, to grieve it, to celebrate it, and then let it go.  We talked about that last week and I shared a 5-step process for doing a year-end reflection. I hope you’ve done this and shared it.  Those of you who have know how wonderful it feels to do so, how alive it makes you feel, and how it frees you up to look forward.

And that’s what today’s blog is about – the process of looking forward. While it’s not a full-fledged planning process, it’s the leaping off point for one, which is why I call it new year planning.  Again, I encourage you to do this on your own and then share it with others who have also done it. Do your sharing out loud. This makes all the difference in the world…finding and using your voice and being witnessed (and giving the gifts of listening and bearing witness to others.)  Have fun with this!

New Year Planning – Kick Off Steps:

1.     Set an Intention. In a few words, sentences or paragraphs, summarize your intention for the year.  You might want to journal about this a little on a separate sheet of paper first. Engage all of your senses as you consider what’s most important to you right now.  Ask yourself, “What is most important to me right now, really?” or “What one thing is most important to me now?” or “What will make me feel like this year has been satisfying and/or successful by year-end?” Imagine it. See it. Taste it. Touch it. Feel it. Smell it. Hear it. And then write about it and share it.

For example, my intention for 2011 is “to successfully and assertively integrate my personal and professional lives.” In other words, I am no longer just a business owner or just a mom, I am a woman, wife and mother with a successful and growing business that I love and that lets me give of my gifts and serve the people I’m meant to serve. I will talk about motherhood at work and I will talk about work in my mom worlds. It has served me, up until now, to compartmentalize my life. I need and choose to let the two mingle more and trust myself to navigate the overlap, the boundaries, and the ebb and flow.

2.     List your top 5 goals. These are the specific objectives you intend to achieve in the coming year (these are not the dreams or wish list items, and these are not the detailed action plans and accountability agreements; this is the place to capture the high level goals that are most important to you and that align with your overarching intention.)

For example , my top 5 goals are:

a.     Change my sleep routine (in bed by midnight or, ideally, by 11:00 p.m., 6 nights/week), so I will be more rested and ready to be that woman who’s a rock solid mother and entrepreneur all at the same time!

b.     With Frank, my business partner, launch the first two courses in the World Class Parenting MAGIC Formula curriculum (the M and A).  Of course, there’s a part of me that wants to launch the WHOLE curriculum and I know that that’s a stretch and may break me/us, so this is a realistic goal – okay, maybe I’m sandbagging and that will be okay too!

c.     With Frank, agree on an approach for and launch our FREE parenting open forums. Right now, we don’t agree on the approach and agreement is one of our practices so this is a series of fierce conversations waiting to happen.  I’m committed to having them, respectfully, and honoring our relationship in the process.

d.     Actively nurture my core relationships by spending quality time by myself and with Michael and each of our boys on a daily and weekly basis.  Anything counts, like driving John Robert to his allergy shot appointments every week and using the time we have together during those visits well.  And date nights with my husband, Michael, dedicated solely to nurturing the relationship and fun are essential, ideally, at least once a week!

e.     Launch an effort to build community with other local women interested in getting together on a regular basis. Host the first of these gatherings in February.

3.     Pick a JOT (Just One Thing) and make it happen.  List one action, just one thing, aligned with the above stated intention and list of goals, that you intend to do, and will do, within the next 24 hours. JOTs are big deals. Instead of writing lengthy lists that overwhelm us, JOTs get us into motion and give us the opportunity to make it real, get stuff done, and feel like we’re making progress. When we have a sense of accomplishment, this fuels the next JOT, and the next! Be realistic and create some accountability and then celebrate when you do it!

4.     Choose one practice to focus on for the year. All of us fall into patterns and are governed by habits that run our lives; some of these serve and some don’t, some of these served at one time but don’t anymore. It is important to examine the practices, patterns, habits and assumptions of our lives.  We will be writing about this a lot so stay tuned.  For now, think about a “muscle” you’d like to build that would help you to honor the intention you stated above and then write a practice statement around it using the following sentence stem: “I practice ______________ as I _______________.”

For example, “I practice kindness, as I pause before speaking, so I can choose my response (what to say and how I want to say it, especially in situations where I am feeling reactive, highly emotional or angry), in a way that honors and preserves the relationship.”

5.     Pick one word or a mantra that you will use throughout the year to remind you of your intention, goals and practice.  For me, the phrase is: “I honor my body, my family and my potential.”

As always, if you feel moved to share with us, please do!  If you do your year-end reflections, take time to complete the new year planning process (whether you take a few minutes or a few weeks), and set up the accountability structures that work for you to revisit these and honor them regularly, you will experience more satisfaction than you ever imagined and 2011 will be your best year ever!

That’s what I wish for you – a deep sense of personal and professional satisfaction and a terrific 2011!  And that goes for all you professional parents too!

Love,

Dori

P.S. – Come visit us at www.worldclassparenting.com to find out more about how to become a professional parent leader – adults who are committed to empowerment through conscious parenting, partnering and leadership, and who are proud to make professional parenting the priority in their lives.

World Class Parenting: elevating the role of the parent; reversing the decline of the family; bringing more harmony into our homes.

Why do so many of us celebrate on New Year’s Eve?  Why do we hold graduation ceremonies and bridging ceremonies and parties when major milestones have been met or something comes to an end?  Why are funerals so important?  What is it about crossing a finish line that is so alluring?  And what happens to us after we do, or, if we don’t?

I have a coaching client who, after thirty years, went back to walk across the stage to pick up his diploma (symbolically this time). He’d skipped this step in his doctoral graduation experience. For whatever reason, he’d dismissed it as unimportant, yet, somehow, over those thirty years, it took up space in his psyche, nagging at him as a regret, or as somehow incomplete.

Incompletes weigh on us because they are usually tied to agreements, or promises we made to ourselves, or others, and did not keep, or they represent the ending of an arc in one’s life that, when not acknowledged, is not allowed to actually end. Incompletes create integrity issues (integrity here has to do with the idea of feeling whole, complete or in alignment/agreement).  While my client may have “finished” his education and received his diploma and is, therefore, a finisher, there is something about the process of bearing witness to this, and allowing others to bear witness to it, that is part of the completion process.

Much like a graduation ceremony, in this process of completing, or honoring an ending, there is a combination of grieving (we’re at an ending; it’s over; it’ll never be this way again; we may never see each other again) and celebration (wow, we did it/I did it; what a ride!)  Perhaps some of us want to avoid the feelings and the idea of an ending? Perhaps some of us are simply exhausted and just want to be done? And, perhaps something really is done and we simply need to acknowledge it and take it “off the lists” in our heads and our hearts so its no longer taking up space? The reasons are always personal.

This is why I have made a year-end reflection experience, or a completion ceremony, a regular part of our family’s life, and a practice I am committed to honoring in mine.  I’ve created various tools for this over the years and have shared them with family, friends and clients. If nothing else, doing this creates another way to bring people together and have more meaningful conversations – it’s that “way in” that gets you beyond the light, cocktail party or quick, dinner conversations.

The tool we’ve been using has two parts.  The first part encourages reflection on the year that’s about to pass or that just passed (you could easily apply this to an event, a project, or some other time bounded initiative). The second part encourages planning for the new year. Both processes are simple and sharing what you create can be a lot of fun and a meaningful experience.

I will share the year-end reflection steps here and encourage you to do this both on your own and with others, ideally, out loud.  I will share the new year planning process with you in our next blog article.

Year –End Reflection Steps:

1.     List your top 5 Proudest Moments (of the past year – anything goes, however “big” or “little”)

2.     List your top 5 Accomplishments (of the past year)

3.     Write a sentence or a paragraph or two about who you had to be for these (proudest moments and accomplishments) to happen? In other words, ask yourself, “What was required of me to accomplish these things and/or invite these experiences into my life?

4.     List the top 5 things you’re grateful for (the roses – roses are the obvious, feel-good things)

5.     List the top 5 things you’re grateful for (the thorns – thorns are the less obvious, seemed-bad-at-the-time things that have gifts in them, lessons learned, a new friend or a new ah-ha moment)

As always, if you feel moved to share your reflections with us, please do!  We may even publish a few of them here in a future blog!

May your new year be filled with roses and thorns and the wisdom and patience to know them as the blessings that they are.

Love,

Dori

P.S. – Come visit us at www.worldclassparenting.com to find out more about how to become a professional parent leader – adults who are committed to empowerment through conscious parenting, partnering and leadership, and who are proud to make professional parenting the priority in their lives.

World Class Parenting: elevating the role of the parent; reversing the decline of the family; bringing more harmony into our homes.