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New Year, New Do

New Year, New Do

New Year

If you woke up this morning bursting with enthusiasm about the year ahead and joyously recounting last night’s midnight champagne toast, congratulations.

If you woke up this morning alone in your bed with the remote your only companion and potato chip crumbs pressed between your face and the pillow, congratulations.

You see how you do or do not want your new year to look.

When we notice how we are living our lives, we have the chance to create more of what we have that makes it joyful and meaningful.  We also have the chance to choose a course correction if we are on the wrong path.

This time of year I can feel overwhelmed or exhausted.  Perhaps from the holiday parties, entertaining family, or —-much more likely—by my own thoughts. Thoughts of my “To do” list. Of my goals for the new year. Of how dreary the world feels when the sky is gray and the wind chill dips below zero. I can justify, rationalize, and explain everything from eating stale candy canes left over from the office party to forgetting I ever had a workout routine to neglecting to return calls from dear friends.

Going through a divorce can leave a person overwhelmed any time of year, but the holiday blues and winter weather can exacerbate the exhaustion. The new year might be just the time to put the brakes on a downward spiral.

While I don’t get a “do over” for my prior year, the gift of the January turn of the calendar is that I do get a “do new.”  Here’s mine for 2014:

I will do new moves.  For years I’ve spent hours each day sitting in a chair at a desk. My new moves for this year will be looking for opportunities for standing, stretching and stairs. Moving my body more matters to me.

I will do new attitudes.  For 2014 challenges, I will ask not what I have to do or should do, but what I get to do.  I still have a mind and body that serve me well each day. I want to act like I appreciate that they enable me get out of bed each morning, see a blue sky, and hear my children’s voices.

I will do new lessons. I made plenty of painful mistakes last year. I spoke when I could have listened. I acted when waiting was called for. I judged when compassion was needed. I don’t have to repeat those lessons. I will do new ones.

I will do new habits.  One at a time, I will focus on the little daily acts which have huge impact. And I mean little.  Two minutes of meditation or twenty minutes of exercise a day can change my life.

Here’s wishing a you a new year full of new do’s just for you.

Coach Koenig

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