Debbie Ford - The Best Year of Your Life: Dream It, Plan It, Live It

E very year around the world, most of us participate in the same New Years ritual. This ritual does not involve celebrating, dancing, drinking, or being with loved ones. Its not about reflecting on our past or even being grateful for what we have in our lives. This New Years tradition is simply the ritual of making a resolution to change, a promise to ourselves to do something new or different. Whether were pledging to improve our finances, our relationships, our appearance, or our employment, what we all share is one common desireto make this year better than our last.

So what happens? Why does our resolve fade so quickly? Why do most of us fail to achieve our desired goals? Why are they mostly forgotten or abandoned by February? Is it that we no longer want the things we thought were so important on January 1? Have our goals and objectives changed? Have we thrown in the towel and given up? Or do we fail simply because we never put into place the plans, structure, and tools we need to succeed?

But what if this year is different? What if you live each day of the coming year with the rock-solid intent to make it the best year of your lifeno matter what happens, no matter what uncontrollable forces intervene, no matter what changes around you take place? What if you discover that having the best year of your life is something that is completely within your own control, something that you can actually shape, create, and achieve? What if today you realize that the choice is really yours?

The possibility of making this your best year ever exists in every moment, because having the best year of your life depends not on some outside accomplishment but on allowing the greatest expression of yourself to be unveiled. Having the best year of your life is about becoming the person you always wanted to be. Its about embracing a vision of yourself at your best and developing the qualities that will take you there.

In the same way an artist reveals the beautiful sculpture that is hidden within a block of marble, each of us must chip away at the outer layers that prevent us from seeing and becoming our true selves. With the passion of a world class sculptor, we each must make a commitment to chip away at our self-imposed limitations and take the time to discover the ways we have hidden our talents and covered up our deepest desires. To create the best year of our lives, we must challenge our self-defeating behaviors and find new ways of reacting to the everyday events that shape our experience. We must first digest and embrace all the limiting beliefs weve collected throughout the years, and then, ultimately, summon the courage to let go of them alleverything that is covering our true masterpiece. To live our best year, we must take the time to explore the thought process that has shaped our ability to succeed or fail, to rise to our finest self or sink into mediocrity.

Most of us have put some kind of limitations on what we can and cannot have, what we can and cannot do, and who we can and cannot be. We resign ourselves to the fact that each year will be either the same or only slightly better than our last, rather than letting ourselves get excited about a limitless future. We construct boundaries around our ambitions, our goals, and our imaginations. And we forfeit total self-expression in favor of fitting in with the masses. As adults, most of us have shut off the child in us, giving up fun-loving pranks and repressing our tireless imaginations. Weve traded in our roller skates and times of skipping in the streets for more serious tasks. Our state of curiosity has been replaced by righteous thinking that restricts what we hear and what we see. Our open and loving nature has been replaced by a guarded and defended heart. And, instead of joyfully going about the task of making the lives we are living great, we daydream about the life we wish we were living.

Maybe you have slipped into the pattern of waiting for the day when your fantasy life will arrive. You might be hoping that the day is coming when you will finally have more success, money, love, or happiness. Like so many, you may be waiting for something to happen tomorrow that will make you feel better about your life today. But I ask you, has that tomorrow shown up yet?

Its time to break through the illusion that the best year of your life exists somewhere out there, in the future, when the reality is that it exists right here and now. Dont get fooled into thinking for one more minute that the best year of your life will just happenif you are lucky. Dont believe that you lack what it takes to make this a great year, no matter what you are doing or what is happening in your life. Dont wait for everything to be done, for your schedule to get cleared, or for your dream man or woman to appear before you take on the task of creating a life you love. Dont let the fantasy of One day or Next year or When I have more time or When I have more money trick you into believing that the best year of your life exists somewhere off in the future.

It is your choice, here and now. Just think about it: This life is available to you whether you are alone, sick, fat, poor, busy, depressed, or addicted. It can be yours even if you dont have a proper education, even if youve done some bad things in the past, even if you have flaws in your personality, even if you were abandoned by someone you loved or beaten as a child, even if you feel unsupported by your loved ones, and even if things around you appear to be out of your control. Your best year is not about getting all the things you think you need to be happy. Its not about finishing that project or finding the love of your life or losing those twenty pounds. Its not about getting out of debt or landing that new job. In fact, in the year to come you could lose a loved one or a job. You could get divorced or run into obstacles in your career. But what I hope to show you is that having the best year of your life does not require that every day be a rosy land of paradise or that everything go your way. What it does require is for you to develop those parts of yourself that are yearning to be expressed. The best year of your life is about becoming inspired by yourself, loving who you are and the choices youre making. Its about making peace with your past so that you can create a future that is unlike anything you have ever experienced. Its about living each day grounded in reality, with passion and excitement for life, and inspiring others to do the same.

The best year of your life is possible no matter what is going on around you. It is yours for the taking. This year, you get to choose what actions you will take and what behaviors you will engage in. You get to choose, in response to the issues you are dealing with, whether you will give up your right to have everything you desire, settling for the illusion of ease that comes from blindly repeating the pastor whether you will tread a new path.

Although at first glance this process might seem daunting, it is really much simpler than you might think, because it is one of surrender. Its the process of letting go of your stories, excuses, and self-imposed limitations. Living your best year calls on you to surrender your outdated beliefs about what you are capable of being or doing and to replace them with the belief that your job is to be the greatest expression of yourself, knowing that there is no finer contribution you can make to this world than fulfilling your highest potential.