Are You Ready for the New Year?
January 10, 2023
by S'Marie Young

2023 offers a clean slate, a new beginning—if you are willing to be in the present.

  • Have you taken time to review and reflect on 2022?
  • Can you learn from past failures and disappointments and celebrate achievements and completed goals?
  • Can you forgive yourself for what you did not accomplish and move on?

As a conscious leadership coach, I help my clients answer these kinds of questions. 2023 is here! Let’s make it a fresh start.

  • Ask yourself, who am I today?
  • Are you happy with what you conjured up?
  • Can you accept yourself, exactly as you are, right now?

Acceptance doesn’t mean static or that there’s nothing you wouldn’t change. Acceptance is freedom from judgement, it’s an act of love. It allows more clarity, a clean mirror to view yourself without distortions. When you accept it all, there’s no need to hide flaws or magnify them. There’s no reason to gloss over mistakes, justify actions or minimize successes. It is all your very own experience, uniquely yours, and nothing else. Everything that you went through was just a moment in time, and it’s gone. It’s not you–it’s simply what happened to you.

You can complicate it by trying to hold on to the story you created, by identifying yourself in the story as hero or victim, triumphant or a loser. You create baggage by justifying what took place as your own brilliance or foolhardiness or you can travel lightly into 2023 with acceptance and a willingness to leave behind yesterday.

You can’t change anything, except your perception and the story you created. If you’re struggling with a loss or transition, acknowledge what you’ve been through and be gentle with yourself.

Taking ownership and responsibility is a step towards acceptance. In retrospect, there may be things you would have done differently, so note them for next time.

  • Is there any action or communication that’s been left undone?
  • Is there unfinished business you need to complete to clear the slate or loose ends to be tied up before your commitment is complete?

If so, determine want you need to do, and get it done. Even if it will take some time, have a clear plan of action and a time-frame for completion.

2023 is an opportunity to reinvigorate ongoing projects and commitments. It’s a chance to look at it from a new angle, a new place in time to see what might need to be tweaked or changed considering what’s happening now.

It is different than when you first outlined tasks and goals and there might be more relevant information that will cause you to shift course. Is the end goal still achievable and worthwhile in the current climate? If not, can it be reinvented, or do you have the courage to toss it and start over?

The new year is a perfect time to reassess, reevaluate and refresh. Not only on the outside, but who you are bringing to the new year.

  • Are you different than you were last year? How has what happened in 2022 changed you?
  • Were there developmental goals that you made so that you can measure your progress, or did you have a heartfelt intention to be different?

Answer these questions with self-awareness, full acceptance, and non-judgement. You are a work in progress and who you are becoming has a great deal to do with how willing you are to look at yourself honestly and change the habitual feelings, thoughts and behaviors that are holding you back.

Are you willing to change? That is an answer that will shape your life in 2023 and beyond.

Let me partner with you to make 2023 your best year yet. Message me to schedule a consultation.

S'Marie Young is a conscious leadership coach, author, poet, and a lifelong seeker of the truth. Integrating core wisdom and best practices from the Enneagram, she offers transformative insights into self-development and an innovative approach to leadership competencies.
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