I’m on my way to Jost Van Dyke with my honey and his daughter, bf and family. We’re taking them sailing and we’re going to get the trip (and the year) off to a memorable start at Foxy’s: great company, great music, high spirits (no puns intended). I’m already cultivating one of my themes for 2012 – Eager Anticipation.
There’s a lot to be said for being excited about something that’s coming up. The psychology of the Advent calendar has us approaching the big day with excitement and starts each day with the high vibration of eager anticipation. There’s nothing like it for build up and it’s powerful ripple effect. Eager anticipation makes everything taste better and it is contagious.
As a coach I get lots of emails at this time of year offering programs and seminars and tele-conferences focused on goal setting, finding the love you want in 2012, being abundant in the new year, getting your business off to a rousing start, shifting gears, stepping up to the plate etc…. I too have a great year-end completion and New Year beginning exercise that I’m going to do but this time I’ll be adding a heaping dose of eager anticipation to the recipe. It’s the best way I know of to make sure that whatever it is I’m wanting to see, do, experience is something that not only floats my boat but fills my sails and carries my spirit aloft in a big way.
You may want to lose weight, stop smoking (the top resolutions), exercise daily, reduce your cholesterol, stop swearing (I heard that one the other night), mediate regularly, be a more attentive parent, a more loving spouse, earn more money, stop biting your nails. But when you think about it – how excited are you about any of these?
Maybe you could get excited about going on a hiking trip with your honey next summer. With that big day in mind, exercising daily, losing weight, becoming a non-smoker are the natural precursors for your eagerly anticipated trip.
You dream of writing a book and are looking forward to attending a writing workshop in the spring. You can’t wait to study with authors you admire. When you sit down to write each morning before you go to work, you picture getting on the plane with a finished first draft of your memoir feeling deeply satisfied and excited and it’s that feeling you carry forth into your day. It makes everything better and it keeps you writing even when you’d rather sleep late.
What turns you on? What are you eagerly anticipating? When you close your eyes and dream, what are you doing, being, and having? What’s going on inside and outside in the life of YOU that makes you sing and dance and want to tell everyone all about it? These are not idle questions? The answers are the building blocks of creation. Imagination is the cosmic soup from which everything arises.
That’s what I’m aiming for in 2012 – a year of eager anticipation.
Like one of my favorite poets Mary Oliver says:
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
Please join me in fanning the flames of eager anticipation. and say “thank you for everything” to 2011 and “yes to all that will be” in 2012.
Happy
New Year.
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