A New Year to Grow

Before embracing the New Year, I always feel a need to assess the past year first. As usual, I think about all that I did, the things I didn’t do or get to do, where I traveled, who I visited, and how could I have done things better, differently, or maybe I shouldn’t have done at all.

After reviewing my prior year, I usually start planning the New Year. Things I want to do, places I want to visit, goals I want to meet, and all the possibilities that lie ahead in the next 12 months. That is what I usually do.

But not this year.

This year, I decided to look back on the past 12 months not to assess all that I accomplished or where I may have come up short; instead I look back to only to review my personal growth. I look at all the challenges and situations that faced me and how I grew from them. It doesn’t matter how I handled the situations – whether I handled them well or not so well. Either way, I grew personally from that situation.

Or, at least I hope so.

Personal growth is the absolute best gift we can give ourselves. Without personal growth we can never learn to really love ourselves, nor appreciate our strengths, nor have a true understanding of who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming. All of this stems from personal growth.

So as I look towards the New Year, I am not going to write my usual list of goals or imagine all the possibilities that lie ahead. Instead, I am going to contemplate about how much (I hope) this time next year, I will have grown – which ultimately determines how much more I learned to love and appreciate myself. Because once we truly love ourselves, it is only then that we are free to truly love others.

Now that is a growth spurt worth waiting for!

Happy New Year – May it grow on you well!

From my house to your house,

Elizabeth
www.elizabethhouse.us