At the beginning of every year, I make it a point to be really intentional about my vision for the course of the year to come. For those of you who don't know, I'm a teacher. So, I ask my students to do the same thing. We start a discussion about who we were in 2020 and how that person won't change unless we will it, want it, and create it. It's easy to wake up and say, "new year, new me," but to make the changes to become the "new you" comes with accountability, discomfort, and mistakes; many words that make us uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable is okay. It's actually the goal. With accountability, discomfort and mistakes come growth. In our discomfort, we evolve into the people we are destined to be.
As a candle maker, I am challenging myself to give you all better burning candles, deeper stories, and an even more luxurious experience. As members of this community, it is my obligation, to give you my best; the best candle experience I have to offer.
In this reflection, I am asking you to reflect on your year and determine how you can sit in some discomfort. Where do you need growth? What have you been afraid to do? Grow and do and fail and get up and succeed and do some more.
I'll leave you with two of my favorite "New Year" quotes by Neil Gaiman that I share with my students every year:
"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."
And...
"...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind."