What do you want to do with your one wild and precious life?

Happy New Year to you! I can’t believe it’s the end of January already. On the one hand, the memories of Christmas are still very fresh in my mind. On the other hand, the quiet, relaxing days of my favourite time of year seem a long way away. Do you feel the same?

I’m a reflective person by nature, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve been especially reflective at the start of a New Year. There have been years when I’ve had fun ringing in the New Year at a party, but I’ve always preferred the comfort of my own home as one year passes into the next. This New Year was no different. It’s boring! I know! I’m ok with that though because as I get older, I’m becoming more comfortable embracing what makes me feel good. I hope you are too.

Last year, in January 2023, three wonderful women joined me for IntentionHaus 2023, a reflection and intention-setting retreat that I hosted in a luxury hotel in Orlando, Florida. For 4 days, we reviewed the previous year (2022), re-assesssed our values and needs, restored our bodies, refocused our minds, and kickstarted the year with clear intentions for thriving in 2023. It was a wonderful, nourishing experience, and I will treasure the memory forever.

This year, there’s no in-person retreat, and I’m doing something a little bit different. Instead of spending 3 or 4 concentrated days deep in reflection and intention-setting, I’m dedicating 30 days to learning the lessons of 2023 and making intentions for 2024. On odd days, I spend 10-30 minutes doing a short practice which includes a “thought for the day” and a self-reflection exercise. On even days, the practice is to share the insights from the previous day’s practice with a friend or loved one.

Doing these 30 days of reflection and intention-setting with my husband, Peter, for the first time, has been cathartic. Not only has it brought us closer together but we’ve both found that doing the practices with someone who knows you well, leads to rich and deep insights. I hope that when I host another in-person IntentionHaus retreat, couples and friends will attend together and experience this catharsis for themselves.

Although it started on a high, the latter part of 2023 was difficult year for me, so I started 2024 in a bit of a slump. Sadly, I’m not the only one still trying to find a new normal after the cumulative effects of the past few years. Recent research shows that nearly half of all Americans don’t feel like they’re thriving.

But today, after 25 days of self-reflection and intention-setting, I’ve been able to celebrate all that was good about 2023 and I’m becoming clearer about what I want to change in 2024. As I discovered in 2013 when I did my first year-in-review and intention-setting exercise, this practice is a powerful one, not least because it helps you put your life into perspective and has the possibility – if practiced regularly – to take us off autopilot and help us lead intentional lives. I have 5 more days of practice to go before the 30 days come to an end, but I’m already feeling more positive, more hopeful, and more excited about 2024 and committed to thriving in the year ahead.

Have you done a year in review for 2023? How was 2023 for you? Have you set intentions for 2024? What goals have you set for yourself? How is 2024 unfolding for you so far?

If you haven’t already done it, it’s not too late to take some time this weekend to look back at 2023 and unearth the lessons it has for you and set intentions for 2024. As you do this, the lessons of the previous year will become clearer, and your intentions for 2024 will emerge. Once your intentions are clear, it will be easier to make goals and come up with action steps for taking you from where you are now to where you want to be.

If setting intentions and goals for the year ahead seems daunting, try embracing the "spaciousness of uncertainty” to protect and nourish your mental well-being.

"Learning to contend with uncertainty won’t completely fix the problems of our day. But, at the start of a new year rife with high-stakes unknowns, we should rethink our outdated notions of not knowing as weakness, and instead discover this mindset as a strength".

At the beginning of the year, many of us make huge, aspirational goals – losing 30lbs, running a marathon – and forget the smaller, more achievable goals that could have a huge impact of our overall well-being. For example, every year nearly half of American workers don’t use all their vacation days. Given the huge boost to our mental, physical and, emotional well-being we can get from taking time off, how about setting a goal of taking all your vacation time this year? The timing for this couldn’t be more perfect. January 30, 2024 is National Plan for Vacation Day. It falls on the last Tuesday in January and is there to encourage us to start thinking about and planning our vacations for the year. If world travel is one of the ways you like to recharge, one of these 52 places could inspire your next travel adventure.

Recently, I watched the film Nyad. I was overcome with emotion at the protagonist’s resilience and perseverance, the love and dedication of her best friend, and the camaraderie and support of those who risked so much to support what started out as her goal, but which became a shared mission, a commitment to embracing life to the fullest.

The film starts with the main protagonist, Diana Nyad, played artfully by the actress Annette Bening, saying: 

“It’s like the entire world is asleep, and even when they’re awake they’re barely there. Laziness is contagious, Bonnie, and we’re supposed to just nod along, like it’s normal that everyone’s just surrendered to a banal existence”

While going through her dead mother’s old possessions, she stumbles upon the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Summer”. One line from the poem resonates with her and the film is about her journey to answer the question posed by the poem.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life”?

While Diana Nyad’s answer to this question is admirable, inspiring, even heroic, the answer to that question for each of us needn’t be. Instead of agonizing over lofty new year’s resolutions and impossible goals, perhaps the one and only question each of us has to ask ourselves and answer is what WE plan to do with OUR one wild and precious life. 

Perhaps then, the easiest intention to make is to BE more alive, to FEEL more alive, to LIVE life to the fullest. And perhaps the easiest goal to make is a commitment to practice – day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year – living in alignment with that intention.

Till next time,

Be Well.

❤ Tashweka ❤

📺 Watch

Watch NYAD | Netflix Official Site

Athlete Diana Nyad sets out at 60 to achieve a nearly impossible lifelong dream: to swim from Cuba to Florida across more than 100 miles of open ocean.

Netflix

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