Sacred Bow: An Intentional Way to Close Out the Year & Start the New Year

Sacred(ˈsākrid) Bow(bou,bō): An Intentional(inˈten(t)SH(ə)n(ə)l) Way to Close Out the Year & Start the New Year

By Leo Babauta

We’re entering the last month of the year, and it can be a crazy, shopping-filled, party spree(sprē) of a month for many people.

Or it can be a simpler, more mindful period(ˈpi(ə)rēəd) of closing out the year and getting ready for the coming year.

I’d like to invite(inˈvīt) you to a monthlong process that I’m calling Sacred Bow: An Intentional Way to Close Out the Year & Start the New Year.

What will this process be? Here’s how I envision(enˈviZHən) Sacred Bow:

Review: Spend the first week reviewing your year so far, noting your accomplishments(əˈkämpliSHmənt) and big events, taking notes on what you’ve learned and what you’ve struggled with, seeing where you’ve dropped the ball and where you could grow.

Let Go: Reflect on what you’d like to let go of moving forward, what you’ve been holding onto that’s not serving you. This is a releasing(riˈlēs) of baggage(ˈbagij) and struggles. Spend a few days practicing(ˈpraktəs) letting go, so that we can be clear for the new year.

Set Intentions for the Next Year: What loving and purposeful intentions would you like to set going into the new year? What would you like to create? Who would you like to be? How do you want to practice? This is taking a Big Picture look at the coming year, and setting some general intentions (and holding them without attachment(əˈtaCHmənt)).

Create a Plan: Now we’re going to make a monthly, weekly and daily plan. It doesn’t have to be incredibly(inˈkredəblē) detailed — just create structure so that we can flexibly move into our intentions, so that we can remember the intentions, so that we can keep checking back in with them. So that we can bring focus, as if this might be the last year of our lives.

That’s the process. It’s a process of reviewing and letting go, so that we can learn from the last year but not hold onto that which is no longer serving us. It’s a process of looking forward, mindfully, and creating a plan to be intentional about how we spend the next year of our lives.

…
https://zenhabits.net/sacred-bow/