All of the activities in Have the Best Year of Your Life are about growth in some way – as growth is inevitable as you take the steps towards changing your life.
But once a week, these dedicated Grow exercises will encourage you to take the time to consciously look inwards, and get to know yourself and your thought processes better.
This includes interrogating the way you view yourself, other people, and the world around you, and noticing the subconscious habits you may not even realise you have.
One of the best ways to do this is through journalling. Using journalling prompts can inspire you to consider new perspectives, and the act of recording your thoughts will force your brain to slow to your writing speed, allowing you to thoroughly consider the question at hand.
Through working with these prompts, and beginning to understand yourself better, you start to have a real choice about the kind of life you want to create from now on.
Here are a few prompts to get started:
Grow to love yourself
Write down the names of a few of the people who love you: family, friends, partners, whoever comes to mind. For each person, write a sentence about what they love about you.
All the time we’re busy focusing on our faults, there are people who love us just as we are. If they can, why can’t you?
Nurture your inner child
One of the most powerful ways in which we can learn to love ourselves more is by recognising the child who still lives within us.
Look at a picture of yourself as a child and answer the following questions as if you were still that child.
- What’s happening in your life at the moment?
- What do you enjoy?
- Do you have any dreams for the future?
- What are the things that worry you, is anything scaring you?
- What do you need?
- How can I make you happy?
What can you learn from this exercise about the way you need to treat yourself? Can you start thinking of yourself as someone who needs love and acceptance just as that child did?
Celebrate your successes
Our lives are full of small successes. Sometimes, just getting through a difficult day counts as a success!
So a way to smooth talk our self-esteem a notch or two higher is by celebrating every win, no matter how small. In your journal, start an audit of all that you’ve achieved.
Start your success list today and don’t stop until you’ve recorded at least 15 of your achievements and successes.
Have the Best Year of Your Life…
Including these grow activities, Have the Best Year of Your Life sets out seven areas where your personal growth can take place, and where joy, discovery and change can enter your life.
Visit my Instagram and LinkedIn pages for more updates, and buy Have the Best Year of Your Life for an activity, challenge, or piece of growth work every day of the year.
