Annual New Year's Workshop Recap

Every year, near the end of December, Amanda and I have the same routine.  We reflect on our year separately with a specific set of journal prompts.  Amanda created these prompts 10 years ago! After reflection, we glean out values, important lessons and growth from the year, and establish goals, hopes, and dreams for the new year ahead. 

Then we reflect together on the phone about our synopses.  We tell each other our individual goals and then fine tune our professional goals.  We laugh, we cringe, we celebrate, and we dream. 

We’ve shared this process together with you virtually over the past three years.  I (Bryana) have also shared this process annually in-person in Walker, MN since 2018 (there were a few years off there during the pandemic and pregnancy). 

Many who have joined us for the first time have enjoyed the process of reflection and establishing values.  Sometimes it can be such a pleasant surprise to notice what (and who) was actually important over the last year. Setting goals to spend more time on the what, and the who is where the magic really happens. 

Many who have joined us for several years have learned to keep the same journal for an easier practice of reflecting back year and year. Many have shared with us that the process becomes even more powerful with each cumulative year.  We have noticed that personally as well. 

In addition to our same set of questions each year, we’ve also expanded the application of our reflections and goal-setting processes.  

I (Bryana) have listed annual family goals.  We genuinely look forward to taking a regular piece of notebook paper to write out what our goals for the year are. We proudly post the plain list on our refrigerator.  At the end of the year, we have a nice breakfast and check off whether we completed each item or not.

Our 3.5 year old has got even more into the routine this year, which has been fun to witness.  He added “go to the donut shop” and “visit the trampoline park” to our list of family goals. We also add the “boring” ones that we want to remember, yet it takes all of us to make it happen, like “stain the remaining three sides of the house”. 🙂  We have a goal of heading to the boundary waters as a family. In the past we have had “floss more often” and “dust more often” and I can say with that reminder on the fridge we have genuinely improved in this area! Also, embarrassingly it took us two years to feel like we fully accomplished those vague goals. LOL!  If we don’t agree on New Year’s breakfast that we achieved a goal that still need attention, then we add it to the new year list again. 

This year mama also wanted to make good on the desire for our family to get outside for intentional quality time.  We’ve added a color-tracking sheet on our fridge from @1000hoursoutside to make good on our goal of an average of 3 hours/day spent outside for the year.  You can check them out more at www.1000hoursoutside.com - they even have a podcast and an app!

Amanda recommends taking your New Year’s Sankalpa, or intention and creating a piece of artwork that encompasses the feel of it.  It does not need to be anything in particular or look any kind of way. Center your art work somewhere you will see it regularly and remind yourself.  Perhaps your closet, desk, fridge, or even the front door?  

Thank you for joining us every year on (or around) the new year!  We hope you keep reminding yourself of what is important to you in 2023.  We will revisit our tradition with you again virtually in 2024! 

As promised, here are the readings from our 2023 workshop:

“May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

May the clarity of light be yours,

May the fluency of the ocean be yours,

May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

Wind work these words

Of love around you,

An invisible cloak

To mind your life.” -John O’Donohue

Burning the Old Year

By Naomi Shihab Nye

“Letters swallow themselves in seconds.

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,

transparent scarlet paper, 

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air. 

So much of any year is flammable,

lists of vegetables, partial poems.

Orange swirling flame of days,

so little is stone. 

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,

only the things I didn’t do

crackle after the blazing dies.”