4 Timeless Reminders You Need at the Start of Every Year

Since the day I started stringing words into sentences, I’ve always felt a strong affinity to the editing process. Hands down. No questions asked. There’s something about going back to the rough draft before you and allowing yourself a second/third/fourth chance to make it better. There’s just something about the freedom of being able to go back to something and ask yourself, “how can I make this better? How can I rewrite this narrative?”I think when it comes to this whole life thing, we tend to put too much pressure on the rough draft. We choose to write our stories in ink that can’t be erased instead of opting for something less permanent. Nothing is final, my friend. If there’s something in your life that you’re not totally feeling right now, drop the pen and pick up a pencil. It’s time to make some edits.

It’s never too late to rewrite your narrative.

This was a giant wake-up call for me last year. I had some pretty lofty expectations of how 2018 was supposed to go, but never did I anticipate on needing to make some edits in my own life in order to get to where I am today.

Here’s the thing. The year before completely wrecked me. And while I feel like I’ve exhausted all that went wrong in 2017 in this blog, the bottom line was this:

I’ve never experienced a year so destructive and debilitating to my emotional well-being.

So, with each day getting closer to the new year, I grew more hopeful. Something about the calendar year changing from a 7 to an 8 was enough to make me believe things would change. Something about 2018 told me a lot of good juju was going to come my way to make up for lost time.

Except on New Year’s Day, I woke up with a sore throat.

Days later, I ended up in the hospital with a life-threatening respiratory infection.

After weeks of recovering and getting back to my norm, my ear and vertigo issues from the previous year came crashing into my head again. From there. I underwent a minor surgery to hopefully resolve my ear issues and lessen the vertigo- it didn’t. The symptoms still remain to this day.

Mid-summer, I experienced massive GI issues, got gastritis, and was hospitalized after my sugar dropped so drastically low I almost ended up in a coma. Those GI issues also still remain to this day.I think you’re getting the point here. 2018 wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns as I had once hoped and believed to be true. In fact, if we’re keeping score here, it was quite similar to the year before. But, what made all the difference from one year to the next wasn’t in what happened to me, it was how I responded to it.

It was how I learned to stop ruminating in the rough draft and start making those edits- regardless of how messy my narrative looked.

In doing so, I realized so many beautiful lessons that helped me endure the hard times with more strength and grace.

Rewriting my narrative in accordance with what I felt God wanted versus how circumstances dictated what I should feel began to shift my perspective in more ways than I could have imagined. It began to change the course of my life.

You are more than enough.

Hold up. Before you dive headfirst into those rewrites, let me ask you something. The you that’s gotten you to the here and now- wouldn’t you say that person accounts for something? Shouldn’t we be celebrating that person as well?

It's time to ditch that whole “new year, new you” mindset. I don’t buy it. The rewrites of your life aren’t creating a new you, they’re creating a BETTER you.

So as you embark on the year ahead, promise me you’ll remember: the you that has arrived at this year is more than enough to carry you to the next. After all, you’ve gotten this far- shouldn’t that speak volumes to your enoughness?

Joy and pain can coexist.

I know, I know. I already wrote about this. It’s just that, for me, this little nugget of truth was the overarching theme of my rewrites. For so long, I operated under the notion that bad things had to end in order for the good things to come to fruition.

Wrongwrongwrong.

Joy was never a destination to arrive at. It was there all along. In between the illnesses, hospital stays, and overall mysterious health issues were the most joyful moments. From grand gestures like this to hearing my nephew say my name for the first time, I smiled through the pain. That’s when I realized:

It’s easy to falter on the false idea that joy can finally enter your life once the challenge has been overcome.

But the reality is that joy is ever-present, and despite the discipline and hard work it requires, choosing to see life this way will always be far more rewarding.[bctt tweet="Joy is ever-present, and despite the discipline and hard work it requires, choosing to see life this way will always be far more rewarding."]

Embrace the rough draft. Learn from the edits.

While I’m all about the editing process, the real work begins in the rough draft. Remember to embrace it. I think it’s easy to want to jump ahead to the part where we have the opportunity to edit our work and skip over the messy stuff.

But, all those incomplete sentences and seemingly unstructured plot lines are laying the foundation for what’s even better to come. They’re setting the stage and gently nudging you in the right direction. They’re preparing you for the lessons in your rewrites.

There you have it, friends. These are some takeaways I’ll definitely be carrying along into this new year, and I look forward to continuing to build on this list throughout 2019.