New Year’s Eve is the classic overhyped under-delivered holiday of the year.

• Maybe you’re celebrating in a new location or with new people and there’s anticipation heading into tonight that it will feel different
• Maybe you’re sure of your resolutions this time and are looking forward to January 1st
• Maybe you took a nap and are determined to make it to midnight because somehow that is just good luck
• Maybe you’ve given up expecting anything out of NYE and just go to bed and treat it like any other day

We all know you don’t need a new calendar year to change your life. You can do that on a Tuesday afternoon at 3:23pm in March…but there’s something about a new year that makes us feel like…okay, this next year…is going to feel different.

And that’s the point: We all just want to feel something different and new.

We want to feel more than what normal day to day life brings us.

• Boredom
• Frustration
• Stuck-ness
• Anxiety
• Pain
• Sadness
• Anger

The New Year is the hope that we can feel anew:

• Excitement
• Satisfaction
• Freedom
• Peace
• Relief
• Happiness
• Acceptance

The truth is that for most people, January 1st won’t magically switch your emotions or your circumstances in any significant way. Especially after a night of food, drinking, and little sleep.

But before you bounce from this hella depressing analysis of the holiday, I have REALLY good fucking news.

Every single one of the emotions and feelings we crave…IS available to us. Before the ball drops even. In fact, you could tap into any one of those feelings in the next 30 seconds if you want.

Because the experience of life happens in our mind, heart, and soul. It’s an inside job.

What all the great spiritual teachers of the ages have learned is that we are the true masters of our own destiny and experience by adjusting how we perceive the world and what we choose to believe about ourselves and others.

By adjusting our expectations AND beliefs, we can open up new doors of possibility that were previously closed.

It’s all in the mind.

The way to hack your emotions and access that sense of wellbeing that we all crave? Is to commit to understanding how your expectations and beliefs shape literally every aspect of your life.

Let this year – 2023 – be the year….

1. That you stop putting obstacles in your own way
2. That you stop hanging out with ANYONE who makes you feel small and unloved and unimportant
3. That you stop waiting for the perfect time or the perfect scenario in which to change your life
4. That you get back in the driver’s seat of your heart and remember that this life is so short, no one will remember you 100 years from now, and you get to decide what you’re going to let inspire you or take you down

Waiting for the ball to drop, for the fireworks to go off, for the feeling of happiness to settle in after a few drinks is fine and very very human.

But it often leads to disappointment when we expect some external factor to magically make us feel or see something different.

You are the key holder to EVERYTHING you desire and love and want. The faster you access that power, and put yourself in environments where that’s encouraged, the better off you will be.

My advice is to start today, not tomorrow. And…

1. Check the company you keep. Carefully. The people who let in your life will be the single greatest source of joy and/or pain.
2. Take your beliefs to the chopping block and make sure they are worth keeping.
3. Go to war with shame and keep it away from your household.
4. Let yourself FEEL things – both good and bad.
5. Take risks.

And a last note for those who believe in God (or want to) – and who feel like they consistently fall short of who they think they should be…

If we all can see and experience astounding displays of unconditional love in the world between broken and imperfect people, how much more love and grace must there be in the Creator of the universe?

Find a purpose in your life that isn’t just about keeping some judgmental human man made version of God in your head happy and pleased with you.

How would you live differently and experience life if you truly believed that NOTHING you do can separate you from the love of God?

Happy New Year everyone!

Xx