I am……

Happy New Year!!

Can you believe it’s 2018?!

Every new year is an amazing time to assess, reflect and plan how we want the upcoming year to manifest. Lose weight, buy a home, pay off debt, travel more, enroll in school…. So many amazing goals that each of us set out to accomplish at the start of a new year.

An activity I do in preparation for a New Year is a vision board to allow myself to visualize what outcomes I’d like to attain. This creates an opportunity to think big, bold and vividly about my goals. This year, in addition to that activity, I am also challenging myself to think deeper and ask myself some additional questions in an effort to ensure that my goals are aligned with who I am.

Here’s a few of those questions:

Who is Shyla? Not who do I want people to think Shyla is, who is Shyla?

Is this who I want to be?

Is this what I want to do?

What’s holding me back from greatness?

What will I do to remove the roadblocks?

So I started with jotting down every thing that I feel represents me through I am statements. I’ll share some of my I am statements below:

 

I am a daughter

I am a sister

I am a friend

I am caring

I am loyal

I am courageous

I am understanding

I am a travel junkie

I am willing to take risks

I am not a know it all

I am unsure of each of my next steps

I am a beach lover

I am willing to learn from my mistakes

I am a foodie

I am strong

I am a fun seeker

I am enough

I am confident

…………………………………….

This was a revealing activity for me as my list continued to grow longer and longer. It allowed me to open up and recognize all of the things I feel strongly about myself as well as those areas that evoke strong emotions and may require some additional digging. This grew deeper as my goal was to only write the things that I truly believed embodied me, how I feel and not how others perceived me.

So, the next question was is this who I want to be? If not, what’s holding me back from greatness?

These questions will be very personal to you (as they were for me), however a great positive way to help you set your intentions to strive for the best version of yourself.

As I began to set my intention, believe it or not… my intention is to truly let my light shine, in any capacity that I am fortunate to have the opportunity.

Another truth, that was revealed in this process for me is to not runaway from the things I’ve asked for guidance on and that have potentially already been revealed…For instance (Take a look at my last 3 years of Vision boards below, you will notice that each year has had some type of reference to “Shine.”) So this journey towards recognizing my purpose and walking in faith towards what God has called me to do in a way has been revealed, however it’s time for me to own it and move from comfortable to uncomfortable as I grow.

I encourage you to take some time to ask yourself those questions I shared in the beginning and then take a moment to jot down your I am statements. Please feel free to share or comment your reaction, thoughts or feelings after doing this activity.

Happy planning and Happy New Year!!

Don’t Forget to Shine!!