Happy New Year!
I hope you kicked off 2020 in your favorite way and are looking forward to everything the new decade has in store!
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.
– Edith Lovejoy Pierce, In This Our Day
What are you most looking forward to this year? I wrote out my hopes and dreams as part of a self-reflection and forward-thinking project, complete with timelines of when I want to do them by. Last year included learning more about the virtues so I can try to live by them better, journaling, increasing my courage, re-learning French, and taking a hand-to-hand self-defense class. Some goals were met, though I still have room to grow.
This year includes learning to fence, learning to ballroom dance, joining a sailing club, finishing writing (rough draft) a series of novels I’ve been working on, and visiting Dublin.
My first reaction to writing that last sentence: that’s a tall order. Look at all that stuff! How can I expect to get all that done while also doing the normal things in life: working, balancing a budget, blossoming my relationships, and working toward other, more logical long-term goals?
But the point of this list isn’t to bog myself down. A hopes and dreams list is a tool to encourage us to rise up to meet our challenges. Yes, there are other things I need to do daily, and there’s only so much time in a day, but if I crowd out time wastes, I can do great things. And so can you!
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
– Les Brown, Live Your Dreams
Our time on Earth is finite; time is the limiting reagent of the reaction of our lives. It stands to reason, then, that our highest priorities should get the most time from us. But what are our priorities? Without knowing our priorities, we can’t prioritize them. Making a dream list demands that we pause to think about what our priorities are. A dream list helps us focus on our priorities and reach for our dreams with purpose and gusto.
So, I may not complete all of my goals for 2020, but if 2019 is any indication, just having the list for reference helps me move in a positive direction. I reference it when I’m unsure which actions to take: reminding myself of what I want helps me to get there because I can make my decisions to further my goals.
Do you have a dream list? What are your priorities? What do you hope to accomplish this year and how are you going to meet those goals?
