Hey Loves– New Year, New Me!! LOL I’m so conflicted with how I feel about this phrase. On the one hand, I get it, we want to be better than we were the year before. On the other hand, I don’t like the phrase because it makes me feel like there was something wrong with the old me. The old me wasn’t perfect, the new me won’t be perfect, but without the old me I wouldn’t have (1) a story to tell (2) a reference for what my better looks like.
To make something new means to start fresh. To tear down something old and reintroduce something new. I don’t have time for that. I’ve worked hard (in collaboration with the outpouring of many) for 29 years to get to the woman I am today, I’m not tearing it down to start over. I think this is the same gripe I have with, “forgive and forget.” I will always forgive, but not forget. There were lessons learned that I can’t forget because they are helping to grow me into something new.
I won’t “forget,” and I won’t “new me,” myself in an effort to be a version of better that is not my own. What I can do is commit to being a better me. Not just annually, but daily. How can I be better today than I was yesterday? What areas am I still weak in? A BETTER me, DOES require some new. To grow I have to have new understandings, try new approaches, meet new people, and more. I will encounter new situations and will be faced with the task of creating new
solutions and resolutions. I will have new ideas.
New is exciting! New can also be scary. This is a new space and I’ve never been here before, how do I navigate it? With confidence. The confidence to make a lot of asks receive a lot of “no’s,” in anticipation of one “yes.” In 2012 I wrote an MM about the fear of the word, “no,” and I’m moved this morning to bring it back up because THIS year is the year we pursue and secure everything! We can’t be afraid of the word, “no.”
It has not and can not do anything to us. The word no doesn’t move us forward, this is true, but it also doesn’t move us backward. The word, “no,” keeps us right where we are as we are…so why are we afraid?
If we don’t make the ask we won’t get the answer. Your blessing is on the other side of the question you won’t ask for fear of the answer being a two-letter word. The devil is a lie. In 2018 it is imperative that we walk into new rooms, up to new people, ask the questions we haven’t asked before, stand strong in the face of no, in anticipation of our yes(‘s). This is a year of yes(!)…but how many no’s are you willing to stand in the face of to receive them?
#MaketheAsk2018
I love you!
–Bry