#ReVision2017: 30 Days That Can Change Your Year
Our 30-Day Guide to Recasting Your Vision for the Next Year
We at #IAmACreator Collective, with our partners at Spyka Consulting, wanted to start 2017 with a renewed vision about what we as “creators” want to make of this world. Given all that is going on in the United States and around the globe right now, we are excited to provide you some extra encouragement as you to move ahead in 2017 by helping you take time out each day to:
*REFLECT on the divine,
* REMEMBER the ancestors,
* RELEASE negativity,
* RECALL your purpose, and
* RECLAIM your power.
A special thanks to those who have checked out our latest feature section entitled #ReVision in our #IAmACreator Digital Magazine. ReVision is all about reorienting our vision as creators in the new year. Its about writing and rewriting our stories as WE see fit. Through “reVision” we set intentions to be ready to create what is needed for our community in 2017 and beyond. So in case you missed it during the month of January, below is our 30-day #Revision2017 Guide to help jumpstart your new year in a more creative and centered place.
Week 1: Reshaping Our Foundational Truths
Day 1: ReVision over Resolutions
Use the New Year as a time for deep introspection rather than hasty goals based in wavering willpower. Think about it, the root of the word resolution is “RESOLVE.”The problem with most resolutions is they are big on good intentions but lack a long-term plan to help us achieve our goals. They also don’t get at the deep-held beliefs about ourselves and our world that shape our actions.
This week give some thought to whether you need to reexamine some fundamental assumptions about yourself and others to make space for growth in the new year.
DAY 2: Being vs. Doing
New Year’s resolutions tend to be all about what we need to DO or stop doing. But today, and especially this year, let’s also consider who we want to BE as individuals and a community.
Where do you need to focus your energy in 2017: Being or Doing? Dreamers, do you need to take more action? Doers, do you need focus more on honoring who you are uniquely as a human being? Maybe you need a little of both?
The New Year is a great time to reassess and recalibrate our being vs. doing scale so we ensure we are living a balanced and authentic life.
DAY 3: Connect To Spirit
Take time today to commune with the divine or simply embrace life’s beauty. For you this might mean being in nature, being with family in friends, taking in art that inspires you, or prayer and meditation. Identify the multiply ways you best connect to Spirit and find your center now so you can call on these gifts to keep you grounded in times of uncertainty.
DAY 4: Find Your Own Voice
Be sure when you look to write your story for 2017 it’s in your voice and no one else’s.
So often in life we get in the habit of listening to other voices — haters, fear, family expectations, or societal norms. Or maybe you’ve been relying on the voice of a role model or mentor instead of your own. This year we need “your” story and “your” voice. You deserve to be heard.
DAY 5: Be Hopeful
Michelle Obama said it best — “BE focused, determined, HOPEFUL, and empowered.” After nearly a decade as a public figure, she gave her final speech as First Lady encouraging us all to remain HOPEFUL, especially in our ability to act.
DAY 6: Imagine With Intention
We all daydream, but how often do you use your imagination to create the life you desire? Visualizing can be a key first step to creating — whether it is better art, relationships, health, or finances. Today use your imagination to see and then reach your goals.
DAY 7: Live Wildly Curious
If you search, you experience. When you explore do so deeply. Curiosity can open doors and lead us down new paths. A mix of curiosity and creativity can ignite your future passions or rekindle your existing interests in 2017.
Week 2: Learning From, Not Reliving the Past
DAY 8: Learn the Lessons Your Past Came To Teach
As resident elders of our Collective once said: “there is no substitute for deep study. It makes everything better.”
As we continue in 2017, let’s realize there are no shortcuts in learning or growth. Life will just make us repeat the lessons until we gain understanding. So we might as well do the work now.
DAY 9: Write Your Wrongs
“…I could never right my wrongs unless I write it down for real, P.S.” -Kendrick Lamar
We spend a lot of time writing goals to propel ourselves forward but we must also deal with the pain holding us back. Often we bury pain, hurt, and rejection from the past only for it to surface in the present. This week take time to process it for good.
Today, consider your past hurt and those you’ve wronged if it is still impacting your life. Then write to your younger self wherever you went through that experience in order to face the pain and show them how you overcame it. Even if it was just by waking up everyday and persisting. In 2017 give yourself permission to heal and move forward with less baggage.
Day 10: Be Honest About Your Track Record
Now is the time to get real about our prior successes and failures. Having a healthy ability to self assess is needed to plan for the future. Lying to yourself only hurts you. Yet, we tell ourselves fictions about ourselves all the time. But telling the truth can lead us to a new path.
This is particularly true when it comes to goal setting. We have to be honest — do we not reach our goals because they are unrealistic? They lack focus? We don’t like accountability? Until you get to the core of why you hit some goals and miss others no one size fits all plan is going to magically help you reach your objectives.
We must invest time in learning ourselves and understanding the fix to our issues is found within.
DAY 11: Draw On the Strength of Your Ancestors
There is a unique spirit and set of gifts your family has bestowed on you. Now is the time to access them.
Often we focus only on the negative habits we learn from our families (i.e. generational curses). But what about qualities that have helped your family endure. This week take time to learn YOUR family history. Talk to your parents, grandparents, and other elders. Your family tree is likely full of inspiring stories that can keep you motivated in the hardest times.
This image includes my own ancestors. I come from a long line of fiercely loving, loyal, and truth-speaking women. I’ve committed them to memory and heart. They have and will continue to give me strength. I will need them in 2017. We are ready.
Day 12: Lean on Your Experience
Too often as women and people of color we underestimate ourselves to our detriment. When a new opportunity presents itself we question our ability and preparation. Everything you have done up until now has prepared you for this moment; even if you don’t know exactly how yet.
Today trust what you know and that you have the skill to learn the rest. Use these known tools to tackle the unknown and go further in 2017 than you ever have before.
Day 13: Have Your Offering Ready
We spend so much time chasing goals, that the goals can become an end unto themselves. So often we want a platform, but if you were elevated to that position today would you have something to say? If you had a bigger audience would you having something meaningful to contribute to their lives?
To whom much is given, much is required. Now is the time to do your homework. Have your creative offering ready so when the opportunity presents itself you can give it your all.
Day 14: Join Faith With Action
At the start of the year there is a lot of talk about positive thought and affirmations. Yet to create real change we must activate our faith — whether it’s in ourselves, a cause, a spiritual practice — and connect it to concrete steps in order to see transformation. This is true at an individual, community, and global level. Dr. King whose birthday is today and we will recognize tomorrow is a lasting example of the impact we can have when we marry faith with action.
Lacking faith? Take some action that will stretch you and your faith will increase to make the difference. Slow to act? Ratchet up your faith in the fact that your actions matter and the steps you take now will benefit yourself and others in the future.
Week 3: Seizing the Power of the Present
Day 15: Seek To Transform
We often talk about dreams, love, and social change like they are ephemeral things. Things that happen from wishing hard. They are not. They are created …from hard-working, intentional, passionate and compassionate folks working together toward a worthwhile goal.
Any progress we’ve made toward Dr. King’s dream is a result of the effort, energy, and imagination of communities who were willing to fight to make a world they had yet seen. They transformed themselves and subsequently transformed the entire world through action. Often we speak of hate as the enemy of love but what about all we’ve been robbed of at the hands of apathy. This year is the time to be engaged, to love, and to create with purpose so we too may transform.
DAY 16: Treat Yourself
At some point in the last few days, weeks, months, or even years you may have experienced a deep sense of uncertainty, stress, or despair. Do not overlook the importance of self-care in your ability to go out and face the world day in and day out. No one is in a better position than you to ensure your emotional, physical, or spiritual needs are met. This week give yourself permission to look after your wellbeing so you can create from a full well rather than trying to draw from a dry one.
Day 17: Trust Your Authentic Self
With so much going on in the world it can be hard to know who or what to trust. Instead we fall back on well-worn ideas, beliefs, habits and patterns, which are not always to our benefit.
Conversely, in an effort to force self-improvement we also run the risk of striving to find our “best self” — an often unrealistic, idealized persona to which we can never live up. Today make peace with your light and shadows, strengths and weaknesses. Trust you are all you need to move ahead. When you can truly accept this about yourself you leave space to accept it for others.
DAY 18: Grieve Completely
Failures, loses, setbacks, heartbreak are experiences that have real impact. Take the time you need to process your thoughts, feelings, and understanding of self in these moments.
While “failing forward” is a useful concept, dusting ourselves off from loss can be harder than it seems. Our humanity is an amazing mix of logic and emotion, give yourself room to analyze and FEEL your loss. Losses that truly matter to you might even feel like experiencing small deaths — of ideals, dreams, relationships — these deserve to be grieved fully.
Know grief is not self-indulgence. Grieving isn’t just lamenting what is lost, it’s a means of purification that helps us to see with new eyes what remains. Because on the other side of every death, big or small, is a rebirth. The seeds and seasons prove this to us again and again; they give us hope in the darkest of times.
DAY 19: Choose Creating Over Critique
The draw of criticism is intoxicating; a mood and mind altering substance that can leave us oblivious to danger of our own inaction. It medicates our fear and anger. Gives us a false sense of uplift as we take a vantage point that looks down on others. But these are illusions. Today consider accessing the liberating power of action — using any mix of anger, disappointment, hope, and passion necessary as fuel to create.
If the world is lacking, it is creative energy that will fill the void — make art, invent products, generate wealth, build community, raise families, produce knowledge, and in all of it grow in spirit. This energy must move from our scattered brains and broken hearts to a collective of active hands. This year creating can be a deeply sobering but life affirming act that improves your life and the lives of others. We can and will call out wrong in the world, but moreover we must call forth right.
DAY 20: Reclaim Your Power
Power is not merely the engine of institutions and people in high positions. In the strictly political sense power is about who gets what, when, where, and how. But in reality power comes in all shapes and sizes — political, physical, emotional, and spiritual. Often we give outside forces too much power in our lives. Sometimes in the monotony of our daily life we don’t check in about how we use the power we have. We take it for granted. We expend energy and influence in ways we can’t account for when we look back over our year.
Yet, power can be reasserted in any moment and with the long run in mind. Exerting our power requires more than a quick burst of energy; it means having a deep reserves like a battery storing up energy to drive you and perhaps even others. Today consider where you’ve let your power become diffuse and how you can reclaim your focus and energy moving forward.
DAY 21: Serve With the Future in Mind
Today take time out to reflect on the realities our forebears survived, the world we have inherited, and the future we dare to dream of for our children. Now is the time to look beyond ourselves with resolve that fear and misperception will not drive us, when we know truth, love, and service can move us forward.
Thanks to our unprecedented access to technology, our era is known for its infatuation with instant gratification and an overwhelming focus on self. This has become the stereotype of a generation as well as our politics. Yet we know this is not all that we are or all we represent.
However, at the same time we each must perform an honest assessment about what we have been taking from the world compared to what we have been giving back. Are you pouring back into the individuals and communities that have and continue to support you? Are you paying it forward to others that are in need of the same support?
Week 4: Creating An Expansive Future
Day 22: Love Fiercely
Today, consider how deeply, widely, and rigorously you love. For those seeking more success, image what can happen when you approach all areas of life with a fierce love for yourself and others.
We often speak of love as if it is the antidote to all life’s ills. Yet the type of love that overcomes indifference, transforms our connections, shapes better choices, and speaks truth in a way in can be received and thus deeply impactful — is a special kind of love. It is tenacious in its pursuit of its target. It protects, trusts, and hopes — always. That type of effort changes you for the better, and in as much, you cannot fail.
DAY 23: Build Community
We draw strength from our communities in all types of ways. When we authentically connect we can channel the passion, commitment, deep knowledge, and curiosity of others and vice versa. Today make an effort to pour into someone else and their dreams. You never know when someone will return the favor in your time of need.
While we talk a lot about leadership, followers, and tribes of like-minded people there is something to the act of creating space for a diverse group of equals. In its best sense a network is who we are — a web of committed interconnectivity — more than what we do at a random event. Find those who can support you and your work, especially from afar, so even in those moments you feel lonely you can know you are never alone.
Day 24: Bridge the Gap
There is the world as it currently stands. Then there is the world as we wish it to be. Our work comes in bridging the divide. This is true whether it’s in our personal or professional life, our local community or our country at large.
It is not enough to look at the things around us and complain. Or to expect someone will come along and create the change we seek on our behalf. If we have the skills and we have the burden, then we must act. We will not always want to take action but we might feel compelled to do so. Trust that feeling. After all, the idea of building a bridge might seem a daunting and futile task at first glance. But once constructed the freedom, support, mobility, and structure this bridge can provide — basically making dreams into reality — will make it worth the effort.
Day 25: Ask Deeper Questions
When life doesn’t go our way we often have basic questions — ‘Why? How soon is this going to change?’ And if we are in a happy place we rarely ask any questions; we just go along for the ride. But there are deeper questions that can help enrich our lives regardless of our circumstances — if we are willing to ask them.
‘Who am I? What do I stand for? How should I live?’ These are questions we can ask yourself individually or in a community of people who are living these questions, together.
The truth is some people are busy rehearsing their answers while others are practicing their questions. Just know it’s in the questions that we find our growth.
Day 26: Go All In
This year if you’re spending time and energy on learning a new skill, setting a meaningful goal, or creating in your own unique way be sure to give it your all. Often we look for affirmation from ourselves and others for simply stating our intentions boldly. But intentions without followup can not lead to meaningful progress.
We all have busy lives with competing commitments. Make time for what matters most. If you can’t give yourself more time for a particular priority then committing to ‘go all in’ is even more important to your future success.
Win, lose, or draw it’s hard to regret the learning we receive when we make a serious effort. It is in this effort that we are forever changed.
Day 27: Be the Spark
After spending the last few weeks mostly focused inward on our own needs, desires and goals, now is an excellent time to begin shifting focus to what our internal work can help spark in others.
In what ways can you be a catalyst for greater creativity in your own life, family, workplace and community? If you do not feel ready to be a spark right now what do you need to do to first rekindle your own flame? Feeding this fire helps you, and also creates a source of light and warmth that can serve you and others.
Day 28: Set Your Sights on Your Vision
Now is the time to put some intense focus on the vision you have for the year ahead. Don’t let distractions get you off track or make you loose sight of your final destination.
Goals become that much more achievable when you can make them specific and tangible — a goal you can literally see for yourself and thus make a reality.
Final Thoughts on Embracing #ReVision in Your Life
Day 29: Embrace Paradox
Today consider all the ways life will present us with situations and self-reflections that seem contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. As we strive to get ahead we must accept life holds highs and lows. Yet we can take solace in knowing life requires both our basic humanity and our highest expression of ourselves.
It will not always be rainbow and sunshine but it will not always be rain clouds either. There is strength to be gained and lessons to be learned from the good and the bad, young and the old. And when we accept this truth we can “create” from any circumstance
DAY 30: Own Your Story
The story of your day, week, month, year, life is yours and yours alone. You are the (co) author and the protagonist in this magical tale. That means you decide the themes and lens by which your story is told — whether it will be a romantic comedy, thriller, or drama.
The amazing thing is you can change your story at any moment it is no longer serving you. You have the power to create you story and to tap into the power of #ReVision to change it. Since we only have this one life to share our story let’s be sure to make it powerful, purposeful, and epic.
Please consider coming back to this 30-day practice as needed throughout the year. For deeper learning you can incorporate journaling, prayer, or deep meditation to help remain centered, on track, and more creative all year long.
We at #IAmACreator Collective and Spyka Consulting encourage you to join #ReVision2017. Learn more at iamacreatorcollective.com/revision2017.
#ReVision ← P R E V I O U S |N E X T → #ReVision: Ditch New Year’s Resolutions For A More Authentic Approach
