New Year, New Changes
You know the cliche “New Year, New You” well you may think it’s a fairly new concept, but it should be “New Year, New Changes”. January is named after the god Janus, the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings.
Maybe it’s no coincidence that so many celebrations happen around the winter solstice. Stonehenge was set up as a monument to the dead – according to a new generation of archaeologists. Apparently, it has more significance at the sunset on the shortest day than the long-held belief that sunrise on the longest day was its main function.
Winter solstice the turning point for change
As we approach the winter solstice, it’s natural we want to hide away at home, snuggle down and reflect on the past year. For myself, the last 12 months have been an interesting time in my life. On Christmas day last year, someone famous died and that catapulted me into the limelight in a way I wasn’t really expecting. You see I knew George Michael at primary school and still had a couple of poems of his. Because of my connections with Radio Oxford, they were on to me the moment it happened. I gave it a few weeks to die down before agreeing for Kat Orman to interview me. It then went berserk. Every news agency going hounded me. I was in every major newspaper, on the news and all over the internet.
The majority of the responses I received were quite positive, but there were a small handful of ex-pupils who were not so happy. To be honest, I was expecting more. But it was at that moment in time I felt I could seriously connect to all those teenagers who were victims of trolling on the internet. I understood how a few negative bullies could turn a situation. I felt empathy towards clients who were addicted to Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook and felt their fear, jealousy, embarrassment and low self-esteem.
George had died from “Natural Causes”. No, he didn’t, he died from lifestyle choices. He smoked a lot of cannabis, and who knows what else he indulged in. Oddly enough in the last year, I have seen more people for stop smoking than in the last 10 years.
The last 12 months of changes
The last 12 months also saw me hook up with a lot of other practitioners. When you are self-employed, working with someone else is always a bonus. In the last year, I set up the Oxford Pain Clinic with Laurence Lemoine and contributed to talks in Intermittent Fasting. A clinic in London approached me to work with them to improve services to their expanding business. Finally, a neuro psychotherapist connected with me to develop an idea to help stroke victims.
So how can I top that next year? Well, I’ll let you know when it happens. Next year the focus will be on one thing only. I am about to have an operation, so will be forced to spend some time off work over the New Year, so that will be the perfect time to start.
What will you change next year?
Sit down with a piece of paper and a diary. You can use google calendar if you prefer a more modern approach. What would you like to achieve this year? The easiest way to do this is to create a mind map. Each line off the central theme is something you have to do to achieve that goal.
Note down the goal in the diary- let us say for this time in 2018. List all the things you need to do to get you to this goal from the branches of the mind map. Do you need help with any of them? Who can help you?
Each branch of the mind map, set down in the diary to reach these subgoals. If you have 6, it will take 2 months for each subgoal. Tackle the subgoals you need help with first, as it could take you longer than the 2 months, and take up the new subgoals early if you complete one of the subgoals early. Every month keep going over what has been achieved and what you now need to do to help you achieve that goal.
Example
I want a new job.
Do you need training? Will you have to travel? Is it going to be in the same industry or something new? What things will you need to do? New CV? Go to agencies? Start with the goal in mind and work back towards the beginning. All the things that need to be taken into consideration.