The end-of-year holiday time carries with it an invitation to reflect, rest, and reset. If your inbox looks like mine, you’ve already been getting a lot of messages with tools and advice for closing out this year, and establishing your goals and intentions for the next year. Both the closing out and the setting up are important processes, and there are many wonderful ways to do both.

Whatever tools you use to close out this crazy year and march forward into the new year with new intentions and goals, I invite you to consider weaving this idea into the mix:  

👉 Years are made of moments, and every moment is an opportunity to choose.

If 2020 has taught us anything it is that there is a lot that we don’t have control over.  And yet…there is still a lot that we do have control over. Things like our reactions, our activities, how we behave in our relationships, our career moves.

I have recently woven the prompt ‘what am I choosing?’ into the course of my daily life. I find that it is a helpful guide in just about every area of life.

This prompt helps me check in with my mood. For example, if I’m angry I ask myself ‘Am I choosing to be angry? Do I want to be angry? If not, is there another mood I would like to choose?’

It helps me plan my day. For example, when my schedule has too many appointments I ask myself ‘Am I choosing to put everyone else’s scheduling needs before my own? How can I choose to show up for others while caring for myself?’

It helps me come boldly back out to the light when I feel like I’m hiding, and it helps me retreat back to solitude when I feel overextended.

In addition to helping me align with the actions that I take…  

This prompt helps me stay aligned with who I want to be, and how I want to show up in the world.

Am I choosing love over hate?

Am I choosing to model the behaviors I want to see more of?

Am I choosing patience, self-compassion, and understanding?

Am I choosing to show up for difficult things in meaningful ways?

Am I choosing to use my voice for good?

Am I choosing actions and activities that align with my purpose?

As with any good thought prompt, this email barely scratches the surface of all the ways this idea can be applied and used to examine what’s going on in your life.  

As you close out this year and set yourself up for next year, perhaps the questions might look like:

What have I been choosing?

What am I choosing now?

What would I like to choose going forward?

Perhaps they might look like something else. Perhaps you will choose not to think about these questions at all, and that’s fine, too.

The choice is yours.