If you’ve ever read my first blog “My Why,” one of my biggest focuses in this blog was talking about the power of connecting with others through words. As humans, connection is the strongest force we have on the planet and it’s important that we leverage that as much as possible. It’s what we’re meant for. 

While human connection is so strong, the best and most important connection we can have is with the self. Knowing our strengths, weaknesses, and how to best support the only body we have. Having regular check-ins with yourself is a great way to notice what’s going on within, both mentally and emotionally. We always care for our physical health, forgetting that the mind and body work off of each other. With that, they should be equally prioritized. 

Without even planning for it, the themes for the last few blogs have been focusing on how we can bring new practices into the new year. Something I slack on and have tried to make a regular practice is journaling. I often reflect on my own life if I’m sitting in my car, lying in bed, or whenever I have some quiet time. Journaling is almost like an upgraded version of that. One of my mentors, Dana Alexa, has always said that there is something so powerful about putting a pen to paper and getting your words out of your body. It’s almost as if whatever emotions or energies are within your body travel through your pen, onto paper, and help you move through it. 

I think I tend to avoid journaling because I know that I may experience myself moving through emotions as I’m journaling, so it can sometimes be uncomfortable. However, I’ve been trying to make a more conscious effort to remember that the feeling after journaling is worth what may be a temporary discomfort. 

While you’re setting goals for 2023 and are looking forward to where you want to go, take some time to sit, reflect, and maybe even journal on where you’ve been. We can’t ever get to chapter 3, without knowing chapters 1 and 2, we’d just be missing parts of the story. 

Reflecting on where you’ve been this past year can be such an eye-opening and forgiving practice. It opens our eyes to our humanness, to know that we’re allowed to ebb, flow, and sometimes fall off the path. It allows us to forgive ourselves in the ways we may have fallen short, to get up, and to keep striving for better.  

If you have some time to reflect on your past year through journaling, I’ve put together a few journal prompts to help guide you through the practice. I’ve always found journal prompts to be helpful as they help me frame my thoughts which are typically scattered: 

1. Do you think this year went by too fast or too slow? 
2. What does the end of a year mean to you? What words or phrases would you use to describe this? 
3. What was your main focus or goal for this year?
4. Do you feel that you were able to meet that?
5. Where can you give yourself grace for where you may have fallen short?  
6. What would you like to leave behind in 2022?
7. What does the beginning of a new year mean to you? What words or phrases would you use to describe this? 
8. How do you feel going into the new year? Are you excited? Fearful? Motivated? 
9. What is something you’d like to change going into 2023?
10. Apart from concrete goals, what would you like to feel more of in 2023? (For example, I’d like to take more quiet moments to feel peace or I’d like to take more chances in life to feel adventurous)
11. What are you most proud of yourself for?

Take some time to jot down answers to these prompts and see what comes up for you. Oftentimes, these types of practices will help to steer yourself in the direction you want to go in for the new year.