Fresh Year Journal Practices

Happy New Year to you! I thought it might be helpful to share the very kind and slow process I am engaging with to set my objectives/intentions/resolve for this brand new year that is upon us.

Right off the top, I do not have this even remotely complete by January 1. I use all of January and the slowness of winter to dream and do this work. That would be too much placed on an already busy December season and cannot be condensed into the 4 days after Boxing Day before New Year’s Eve.

When the quiet of January descends and the busyness of December subsides, I brew tea and pull out my journals and day-timer from 2024. I get cozy whenever I can and begin my year in review.

I re-read my journals in a fast, skimming way. Beside me, I have a straightforward grid drawn out to “capture” the mood or feeling of each month in 2024. What had my attention, good, bad, or indifferent each month? What was I hoping to experience? What was I hoping to avoid? What transpired? What word or phrase captures it?

I am always shocked to find that the direction I thought I would be heading in the new year is often NOT the direction my lived experience reveals to me as I reread my journals.

A direction or intention reveals itself, but not the one my mind had cooked up. How I want to feel and what I dream of experiencing reveal themselves in the most gentle and quiet of ways as I do this review.

I take time to celebrate the me who walked me through 2024. I celebrate the growth I see and the mistakes I made. I celebrate all of it. The ups. The downs. The hellos. And the goodbyes.

This practice helps me pause, breathe, process, say thank you, and then move on—gently, with intention, into this fresh, brand-new year…

That is what I am working on in my journal at the moment. Nothing to fix. Nothing to change. Just quiet reviewing by the fire with a mug of tea in hand and some deep listening for any messages that last year had that might inform what I dream of experiencing this year.

Happy journaling!