Goal setting, mind-setting: 2017 will rock

As a new year approaches, I like to begin setting goals and getting my mind focused for the year ahead. The last two years, I created a mantra for myself and set my sights on BE. LIVE. BELIEVE. That's still a large part of who I am and will remain a focus. I have to be careful to avoid being so busy making our lives great that I lose sight of enjoying living life. Each and every single day is a blessing and for that I am grateful.

Going into the celebration of the New Year, I thought a lot about m 40X40 list and various goals. I examined where I was in relation to where I hoped to be at this point in my life. I set that list of 40 things to accomplish by age 40 back in 2013. On one hand, it feels like just yesterday, on the other, I wonder how suddenly it is so long ago...a distant memory. I am not the same person I was in 2013. I have continued to get Bekah back and I have continued to grow as a person. I have shifted priorities.

I had not yet set specific goals for this year. I had not given myself something to strive to achieve. Until tonight.

Tonight, I attended the Successful Women of the Central Valley monthly mixer. Last year, My Chico and I attended the January meeting and "Name Your Year" was the topic. I went into the mixer a year ago knowing and wholeheartedly believing that 2016 would continue BE~LIVE~BELIEVE. And so, naming my year was easy. This year, I knew I had some ideas floating around my brain but I hesitated to put a "theme" to the thoughts. I really felt unsure about how exactly I would "name my year," but alas, I would return to the SWCV mixer and perhaps come out with something.

And I did.

Then I drove home and realized that it would change. It had to change.

A common thread in much of my note writing revolved around organizing chaos, searching for and spreading peace and love, and bringing harmony to the world at home, at work, in my community, and in the world. I sat with the woman leading the exercises and we discussed what I had written. She asked me for a song to summarize what I had written. I searched for one, mentally singing different lines from different songs. Finally, in all of the concert hall sound that was my brain at the time, I settled on one.

"Perhaps this is going to sound cliche," I said. "But, I think it's Hallelujah."

I have two versions of the song on my iPod, one of which is Leonard Cohen's. My favorite, though, if the recently shared Pentatonix version. (Have you heard it yet?)
I was guided through all of this and led to naming my year "My Hallelujah Year." I wasn't 100% sold on the idea, but felt it put me on the right track, so I made a note of it and decided to consider it. Later, I adopted it and nurtured it and made it mine.

And then, I got in the car to drive home. I planned to listen to Hallelujah on the drive home, but got sidetracked by the Broadway station (XM station 72). A song was finishing and it was one I was familiar with, so I decided to just let it be. The next song to come on was from "Hamilton." Something about "It's Quiet Uptown" struck me and it caused a huge AH-Ha moment for me. I started thinking about "My Shot" and what it meant to me, too. I thought about how much I love music, how much fear needs to go allowing peace and love to prevail.  I started thinking about how I I felt so unsettled about what I had named my year and how much I wanted to take what I knew, break from convention, and make it something completely of my own that embodied some of the thoughts I had.

This year ahead is going to be huge for me and that is in large part because I plan to make it huge. Huge for me, for my children, and for everyone who is a part of our lives. I can see where in December I may scream "Hallelujah" from a high mountaintop. I can also see where that was just a piece of today's puzzle to get me where I really needed to be. Other songs on the drive solidified what I was feeling, thinking, and ready to share.

2017 for me will be a beautiful thing. Peace and Love will spread like a wildfire even in the tiniest of ways. I will do my part. And this year for me shall be named:
Fearless Fabulous 40

I will be fearless.I will be fabulous.I will be 40.

And it is going to rock!















Songs from the drive home included: "It's Quiet Uptown," "Hallelujah," and "Here's to Us." Songs in my head this evening included "Give Peace a Chance," "Imagine," and "My Shot."