As I ordered my coffee NYE morning

I asked the barista how she was. “I’m good! I’m really looking forward to the new year!” The way her face and voice lit up when she said it made me excited. What’s to come? I asked her if I should be looking forward to 2024. She said she knew something good was in store for her in the new year.

What a great outlook! Nearly everyone had this outlook in December 2020. Remember? It was as though COVID (and systemic racism, and financial disparity, and loneliness and political opposition) would be magically whisked away at midnight. We were all SO hopeful about 2021.

And in December 2021, we were all SO hopeful about 2022…

Do you realize what is possible though? Because our perspective is ours to choose: We can be excited about a year WHILE WE ARE IN IT.

Here we are at the beginning of 2024! It is possible, if we decide, to maintain our sense of possibility and motivation into (yes- it’s true) FEBRUARY. And honestly, we can keep the narrative going as long as we’d like to keep it going.

Think about the mindset that is in the air at the beginning of the new year:

“This is a chance to start over.”

“I can take what I’ve learned from the past and make improvements.”

“I don’t have to let failures of the past drag me down.”

Any of these can be the way you start every single day.

But it requires intention. Breathwork and meditation are the best ways of becoming more intentional. In other words, of getting better at using your thoughts to your advantage as opposed to your thoughts “just happening” to you. Whether or not you have a regular practice of focusing on something for a few minutes (or more) at a time, you can write down what you’d like your mindset to be and place it where you’ll see it when you start your day. Next to your bed. On your mirror. Behind your steering wheel.

It may seem cheesy, but having a reminder of how you’d like to view your situation, your day, or your life can make a huge difference in the thoughts that routinely pass through your head all day, every day. Choosing the way you’d like to see things allows you the possibility to remember the optimism that’s contagious in the new year. And maybe even pass it on to someone else!