As this year closes out tonight, it is the beginning of a new year. As we get ready to watch the ball drop, and for us DAWG fans we hope there is not any ball dropping but a WIN. Many people will celebrate with parties but hopefully they take precautions to avoid the variant virus. What is your mind going to do tonight? This is the focus of my last blog post for 2021.
Let’s do a review of this past year:
- What is your biggest accomplishment?
- What was the biggest failure?
- Did you make your goals or did you not set any goals?
- Did you save money or go farther in debt?
- Have you thought about your health’s status?
- Did you further and develop your career?
- How many times did you reach out to help others?
- Are you happier or sadder at the end of this year?
I ask these questions to begin my topic Is This An End or Is It A New Beginning ? In my life, I have found out that yesterday’s failures can lead to tomorrow’s successes if I use the lessons learned to overcome any future obstacles. I am sure that most of the successful people are students of learning from mistakes.
Now let’s look at tomorrow’s possibilities:
- Plan on what you want to accomplish this year by setting a goal for finances, education, health, relationships, careers, and/or retirement.
- Evaluate any failures and why they happened, take responsibility for any action which could have the cause, and calculate smart decisive moves to avoid failure, and forgive yourself and move forward.
- If you cannot make goals, research and learn how to set realistic and dream goals. Sometimes it requires dream goals to push us to make realistic goals come to full rendition. If for whatever reason, you surpass the realistic goals, you might see the dream goal become closer and even realistic.
- Saving money, making sound investments, will reduce stress and make your financial goals more realistic. Eliminate debt by setting goals and sitting down and figure out how to stop unnecessary spending and place that money to paying more than the minimum. Example: I decided No More Credit Card debt several years ago and I started with the card with the lowest balance and doubled up the payments. Once that card was paid off, I took the same amount of money in addition to the regular payment to the next lowest balance card. I used this system and I can say we only use our cards if we can pay the full balance off in three months time; if we cannot budget that; we don’t use the cards. You can do this; we did and we are not wealthy people but we are now credit card balance free. The three month paid in full is a great way to use credit as most purchases have a no interest time frame such as 6 months.
- New beginnings are technically endings of previous actions. Your health is the biggest asset you have in existence. It provides you with the ability to earn money working. It is essential this is vital to your plans of any kind. Careers, hobbies, relationships, and other endeavors depend on you having the energy and health to achieve success in all of life’s tasks. Over indulging in eating incorrectly, substances, and inactivity will defeat your health status. Learn to take care of your health as once it disappears, so does your productivity level.
- In whatever career you are in or want to pursue, be specific in your goals but take the time to realize what will be the outcome of your decision. Are there retirement benefits? This is crucial but if the field you choose doesn’t come with long term benefits but offer immediate income revenue, set up your own retirement plan.
- If whatever you do, or however small amount you can give to others, by all means pay it forward. The reward of giving is far more important than sitting around and feeling sorry for someone and not discounting prayer but do what you can for that person if possible and still pray.
- Decide your mental state now. Are you happy or sad? If you are happy, that is great and build on that happiness. Never take happiness or loved ones for granted. If you are sad, sit down and think about what is making your sad. Is it finances, relationship, work, lack of faith, health, or addictions of any kind including food or substance? If you don’t know what is making you sad, you can’t fix it. Denial is not a solution and the sooner you know, the sooner you can move to the solution. We all deserve to be happy but we can self sabotage our happiness. Feeling sorry is not a solution for any condition. Everyone has a story, everyone is dealing with something, and everyone can overcome or get help to overcome anything if you are willing. If you are willing, by the end of next year, you can say I am happy.
I leave all of you with this message of love. I cannot solve anyone’s problems. I can however work on myself to become the best I can be with all of my flaws and failures along with all of my successes. I choose to be happy, positive, full of hope and dreams. I feel confident you can be, and pray that you are happy already. LIVE LIFE, LOVE LIFE, AND LIVE AND LOVE LIVE TO THE FULLEST by filling your life with strong goals and a positive attitude. Happy New Year to All.
(C) Copyright 2012-2021 Arline Miller of Sipping Cups of Inspiration with all rights and privileges reserved. Third party material is sourced, if known, to original location/author for credit reference.
