2018 has begun, but it’s really still just a baby. Three hundred and sixty-four days now, of a story not-yet-written.

Your story.

But maybe you didn’t quite get around to resolving what to do, or what not-to-do this year.

Maybe you’re still waiting for inspiration to strike. Or for some enthusiasm to take hold.

For an idea or two to come.

Honestly? Sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes you don’t have one single clue what you want to do, or even if you want to do anything at all. Sometimes it’s really all you can do to just get up and get going.

I so get that.

You ask yourself, maybe a couple dozen times or more, what you want to resolve and what you want to pursue and what in the world you want to do with your new year but you really just don’t have a clue.

The good news, maybe great news, is that you really don’t need to have all the answers.

Actually, it could very well be that you’re asking the wrong question.

Maybe instead of asking “what do I want to do / plan / achieve / resolve this year” we should be asking how we want to feel.

Because it’s always a feeling that we’re after.

Feelings drive doings.

When we set an intention or set a goal or set a plan in order to achieve something, it’s never the actual thing that we’re after – rather, it’s the feeling that we believe that thing will give us. We desire to feel a certain way, and have decided that the particular goal we set is the way to get there, and sometimes it is.

But often, it is not. Oftentimes we achieve something and are still not quite happy.

Because we’re deciding what we want (i.e. physical thing or accomplishment, etc…) instead of understanding the deeper desire – how we want to feel.

How about we start with how we want to actually feel, and work back from there? Revolutionary idea, maybe. Or maybe just common sense.

And it’s all a bit softer, really. More inviting and crazy-simple. Just ask yourself:

How do I want to feel?

Think of it as an exercise in getting to know yourself a little better, what’s really important to you, getting in touch with your heart and letting that guide you just a bit more in the decision-making-resolution-stating process.

Look within to find what we really want, how we really want to feel, and then use that wisdom to bring us closer to the life we truly desire.

Here’s what I think, based on years and years of making resolutions to do stuff that I never actually ended up doing: when I focus on the what-I-want-to-do, or even on the how-I-will-do-it, I miss the most important thing: why I want it in the first place.

Once you start digging into your why – which is always the question of how you want to feel – the best path to take usually becomes clearer, and almost always becomes simpler.

I might think I want to quit my job and become an artist (preferably living in a small villa in the south of France), but maybe what I really want is to feel creative in my daily life. And maybe there are other ways to do that.

I might decide to give away all of my belongings and devote myself to missionary work (a noble pursuit, to be sure), but what I really want to feel is that I am serving others. And there are so many ways to serve.

There are so many ways to get to where you want to be, to feel how you want to feel.

That’s your real destination, of course.

And of course, it’s always easier to get to a place if you know what that place is.

~xo,
LuAnne