Choose What you Want More of in 2023

As we start a new year, it’s a good time to reflect on the past year.  We can think about the prior 12 months through the lens of our experiences and overall emotional state. 

Part of being human is experiencing a whole range of emotions every day.  That being said, an excellent way to assess your year is to take an inventory of your default emotional states, listing out those feelings you seemed to experience more regularly.  Were you mainly in the Green Zone, experiencing emotions such as hope, excitement, joy, and love? Or were you primarily in the Red Zone, experiencing emotions such as worry, anger, fear, or hopelessness?   

It's easy to fall into the pattern of simply reacting to whatever happens in our lives.  If we experienced a lot of challenges, we might have had a year filled with more Red Zone emotions, and if we had positive experiences and situations, they likely allowed us to spend more time in the Green Zone. 

That being said, as we go into 2023, know that you can choose how to respond to any situation that arises in your life, whether positive or negative.  Choosing those emotions you want to experience can establish your set point, as opposed to allowing whatever happens in your life to determine what type of year you will have.  

Here are some examples of what you can choose in 2023:

I choose JOY

I choose Love

I choose Compassion

I choose Fun

I choose hope

I choose ________ (you fill in the emotion)

The way to put this into practice is to recognize when something arises that causes you to react with your default emotion… remember to STOP and choose how you want to respond.  An example of this response is that if you usually get angry when someone does something that offends you, or causes you to feel taken advantage of, choose to have compassion for them instead.  Try extending some grace by recognizing that they may be having a bad day, or at the very least, try to see things from their point of view. 

Each time a situation arises and you respond with your emotion of choice, you move one step closer to experiencing more of that emotion in your life.  Make it okay if you slip back into your default emotion and give yourself grace, as you've likely been practicing it for a while.  Give yourself time to make the new emotional choice your new default mode.  

When we are ready for a positive change in our lives, we might want change to come quickly; however, the choices we make each day can lead to true transformation over time.  In the interim, we can continue to deliberately work to create that which we want most in our life on a more regular basis.

 Let's get ready to make this New Year the best yet!

With Love and Joy,

The Neuroshifts team