2022 - A New Me, New You
Crazy enough, it’s that time once again where we prepare to transition into another year. I swear, it’s all been a blur pretty much since 2012. Even now, I’m still thinking that “last year” was 2017.
I feel I’ve personally had quite a bit of growth during the past 2 to 3 years. Perhaps becoming an adult and my brain finishing up the maturing process is the reason. Perhaps it’s because quite a bit about my life has changed in those three years. Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
I feel I’ve begun to find a rhythm I enjoy in life and I’m settling into it happily. At the same time, I’m looking for ways to continue to grow.
Upon shifting my focus to myself back in 2019 with the intentions of nurturing/healing my soul and creating healthy habits, I can surely say that today in December of 2021, I’m a better version of the self I wanted to be throughout my life.
Call it “that girl” or whatever you want - but I think we all have this vision of ourselves at what we personally would consider our prime health, happiness, stability, and success. Our “end goal self” or "Prime Self" as I call it.
The problem is, I hear so much about how unattainable that is from most people. I know that mindset, as I used to be one of those people.
The issue isn’t that it’s unattainable.
The issue is that it IS attainable, but it requires time and effort. It means you must have a clear goal of who/what you want to be. You must accept where you are now. You must have a loving dedication to yourself, a disciplined routine or task completion schedule to get from your current starting point (A) to your final end goal self and life (B).
If you haven’t yet, think of your Prime Self. Determine what your final "goals" self is. Determine what it means to be successful to you.
What does your career look like?
What would your hobbies be?
Who is around you?
What do you look like?
What goals would you want to achieve financially?
What kind of lifestyle do you have?
What do you think your day would look like?
This is the thought process I used to determine what I truly want/need for myself and how to ensure I get it.
You don’t need to just set goals or make new year’s resolutions. That's step one. For the next step, you need to take action to achieve them.
For example: I realized that I truly enjoy the creation of art and design. I want to leave a lasting impression of wisdom and beauty in life for others to take inspiration from. I want to be my healthiest self to manage my chronic illnesses the best I possibly can - both my physical and mental illnesses. I want to have meaningful and supportive relationships with my family and friends. I want to have financial stability for my family and later life.
This was the basic idea of my Prime Self.
Based on this discovery of what I value for my life, I can begin to determine how to make that happen.
If I want to be physically healthy and have the ideal body I want, then I need to eat well, stay hydrated, take vitamins or supplements, and workout regularly. If I know this but choose to continue to disregard what my body needs, eat badly, and not work out, then I will not achieve my goal.
The same would go for my career. If I know I need to block out more time for work, but procrastinate or rush through projects, I won’t succeed as well as I would if following that rule. Once again, it’s the same for my finances. I want to have a savings nest egg, but if I choose to order DoorDash every day, or buy unnecessary things, then I will be failing to meet that financial goal I set.
Setting goals is only the first step. You must take action to achieve those goals.
The book, Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck, I would highly recommend to anyone seeking information on personal and mental growth. She's an American pyschologist and author who basically has determined through her 30 years of pyschology experience, that majority of people rest on a sort of mindset scale. One side of this scale is growth, and the opposite site is fixed. She says that if you have a fixed mindset, then you believe your abilities are fixed traits and therefore can't be changed. If you have a fixed mindset, then you believe that natural talent leads to success. If you have a growthmindest, then you believe if you work hard for something you can achieve and succeed, even without having a natural talent for it.
The topic on the mindsets is much more complex than I'm able to go into. But based on her teachings I was able to recognize my childhood mindset was much closer to the fixed side. She discusses how to make this change in her book, and I've seen a few book reviews that cover her process of mindset change as well. I personally applied that process to myself and though it didn't happen overnight or easily, it did happen.
Now after much shadow work, and motivational improvement, I realize that I can control my growth almost the way a computer updates and reprograms itself based on new information learned. The time I feed into tasks and hobbies I get back in new knowledge that makes me better. Failures provide me with experience to ensure I succeed. I only fail when I stop trying to learn, trying to do the things I enjoy, or trying to create the career I want.
This growth mindset plus my positive practice have helped me to begin creating my final goal self and life now.
I know that manifestation, affirmations, and the law of attraction has been a huge craze on tiktok and instagram as people begin to look inward and work on themselves spiritually. And don’t get me wrong, obviously I’m a huge supporter and practitioner of this line of thinking. But the one issue I have is I usually see people focusing only on the Law of Attraction. While this is a great law, and a wonderful practice, there are other laws that must be used in addition to the Law of Attraction.
Let me give you a few bits of information that I have been applying hand in hand with the growth mindset to myself and my life for the past few years. Hopefully this is as helpful as it was for me. I created these two designs for my own practice, but figured others could benefit from it as well.
All the laws apply to our life and are necessary in your manifestation and personal growth goals.
The 12 karmic laws and the 12 universal laws are essentially the 24 magical ingredients you will use to create the divine pie known as your life.
I decided to write these laws into my daily positivity journal and saved them to a pinterest mood board as well. I found that seeing them often kept me thinking about them and how it related to me and my life. Having them in my journal where I evaluate myself, track my growth, and habits gave me the ability to match my improvement to the laws. I use these laws to hold myself accountable to the plans I make for myself and goals.
I take responsibility for the time I choose to procrastinate - but don’t beat myself up for it when it does happen.
I made these beautiful guides for the Karmic and Universal Laws
You can find these both on my Pinterest as well @sierrazionn
The Law of Responsibility
I understand that if I want to create music or art or anything I can be proud of - it requires time, effort, energy.
The Law of Creation, The Law of Action
I recognize cycles in situations and in people and realize that if I can recognize those patterns but stay the same - I will repeat that cycle until I learn from it and change my actions.
The Law of Change, The Law of Growth
I see how everything is connected: past, present, future, cause, effect, action, and reaction.
The Law of Divine Oneness, The Law of Connection
I understand and accept that nothing is permanent, everything must and will change.
The Law of Rhythm, The Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy
These are just a few of the ways I incorporate these laws and learnings into my daily life.
Through understanding these systems and realizing you have to be the one to do the work for yourself, you can begin to truly manifest the life and self you’ve wanted to for so long.
You’re the person sitting in the driver’s seat of your life. You’re the person that can achieve whatever you decide to. You’re the only person who can hold you accountable to make the changes that need to be made for yourself. And you’re the only person who can decide to hold you back rather than push you forward.
Do it for you. Who else will?
Cheers! Here's to you in 2022, Happy New Year! Live life like art - beautifully.
