Episode #3 - Review & Release For A More Powerful Year

Don’t you just love the energy of a new year?

It comes with this unrequested permission to have a fresh start. It’s like pressing the reset button. All of a sudden the scoreboard is back at zero and it’s game on.

With this in mind, I want to talk today about reviewing your last year.  Why you might ask, I want you to bring with you what served you, and leave behind what did not.

Because we are all about intentionally, designing, manifesting, and living the life of our dreams this exercise helps you to drop the mental baggage that you are carrying, that’s weighing you down and not serving you. It will also help to embrace and celebrate your accomplishments over the past year. 

It’s so easy to see only the negatives in life.  The human brain is wired for survival so it’s always looking for what what’s wrong, what’s missing and the potential problems. This is one of the reasons why we have to train our brains to see the positives too.

There’s a great book called the Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy.

It’s all about seeing and measuring things from the gain. How far we have come, the progress we have made rather than the gap. How we missed the finish line, and how far we are from the unreachable horizon. 

In the spirit of the book, let’s take a few minutes to review your 2024 gains. 

To make this easy for you, you can get the worksheet for this episode in the show notes on the make it happen project .com website for  Episode #3. Or you could grab your favorite journal and just push pause and answer one at a time. 

Review:

So what are those high points, those peaks you had last year?

• They could be little wins or big wins

What did you manifest, or make happen last year?

What did you accomplish that you are proud of?

• Maybe it’s an area where you stepped outside of your comfort zone, a big goal you crushed, a fear you overcame, or a big change you made.

What did you learn about yourself?

What was your favorite memory of the year?

What did you start that was new in 2024?

What was something unexpected and joyful that happened in your life?

Was there something you went through that was difficult but that you overcame?

What beliefs did you have that served you well?

How did you grow as a person last year?

• Learning, growing and pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone is essential to create change in our lives. 

Now, I can guarantee you, that for most of us our year didn’t go exactly as we planned it would.  Am I right? It never does.

Life throws us curve balls.  It’s called the law of contrast or rhythm.  There’s ups and downs, peaks and valleys.  So in this part, we are going to take a look at what we want to leave behind. 

Why does this matter you may be asking, well one of the common blocks to manifestation is staying the same person.  

To manifest new things and to get new results we need to become the next version of ourselves.  We need to be the person who has those results.  In order to do that we need to let go of the qualities that no longer serve us or the future we are trying to create. 

The new year is also a time to set down that baggage and walk away. Leave it behind you, walk away a different person, in a new direction even if you so choose.  You can literally choose to do this at any point in time, especially if you are listening to this and it’s not the new year.

So often we let our past determine our future.  We think we can’t do something because we have never done it before.  That’s kind of a crazy thought, right?  

Think about a little toddler trying to walk.  Nobody walks without falling down and getting back up several times.  If we let that first fall mean we would never succeed then we would all still be crawling.

Somehow, as adults be become more self-conscious and we let the misses define who we are and what we are capable of, or lack thereof.  We can let the past creep into our minds and be the reason it stops us from trying again.

I thought this was a profound quote when I heard it the first time,

The past only exists as sentences in our heads.

Now, if you feel that the past is still affecting you, it’s because you keep thinking about it. 

I’m obviously not talking about crawling and walking anymore but all those moments last year that didn’t go your way, those where maybe you disappointed yourself, you were ashamed of yourself, you missed the mark or a situation in which you chose to play small. 

Remember how we were talking about the law of opposites/or law of rhythm and how there are peaks and valleys in life?  

It’s what do you do in the valleys.  Do you sit down and stay there? Do you sulk and give up? 

Or do you say to yourself…. Well, it’s only up from here.

The turning point is the point in which YOU choose what you want to do when you are at the low point in that valley.

Here are a few questions that I’d like you to answer: 

What limiting beliefs did you have last year that did not serve you?

They can be beliefs such as

• Life is hard
• Money is always tight or hard to make
• I’m unlucky in love
• I’m not beautiful 

What habits did you notice you had that do not serve you or serve the future that you are trying to manifest?

Something as obvious as a health habit related to eating, smoking or drinking.

The habit of being lazy

Unorganized

Being negative 

Being late

What stories or excuses did you tell about yourself, and your situation?

Is it the victim mentality - life is happening to you rather than for you.

That something you want or desire is impossible so why try?

What emotions or energy did you often find yourself in that you no longer want to take with you?

Negativity  or complaining 

Self-sabotaging

Being self-conscious

Being critical of others or gossiping about others

What do you forgive yourself for?

What do you forgive someone else of?

Who do you no longer want to be this year that you were last year?

Make sure to grab the free downloadable worksheet. I’ll put the link in the show notes. 

The first page is all about reviewing and taking all the things with you that will serve you into the new year

The second page is about reviewing what you want to release and let go of. 

I recommend burning the release paper.  At my vision board workshop, we did this and we burned the release paper with a sage stick. Obviously, find a safe outdoor place to do it We used a ceramic flower pot. Or you can even use a shredder which can be fun and just as satisfying. 

I hope this exercise makes you feel even more empowered to make this new year Your best Year yet.   

Rember nobody is going to make your dream life happen for you. It’s up to you to create what you want.