At the beginning of February, I was talking to one of my friends who told me for the first time, she did a bit of a closing ceremony for the month of January. We all know what month-end means in the business world: balancing the books, reviewing stats, business-y things. But what about for humans? Is there benefit in doing a month-end ceremony in our personal lives? I thought it was a great idea and I gave it a try.
What do I mean by a month-end closing ceremony? Firstly, it doesn’t have to be a ceremony per se; it can be a journal entry, a meditation, a mind map, or any other strategy you use to keep track of progress. For the month-end ceremony, imagine all the things we do at the end of a year, along with our plans for the upcoming year, but on a smaller scale. One of the reasons we are so ambitious at the end of the year is that a new year brings new possibilities. Well, so does a new month, a new week, or a new day. We often lose track of our goals and true desires in the mundane of day to day life, so it’s a great idea to check back in to see how things are going.
When I did my closing ceremony for the end of January, it wasn’t so much of a ceremony as it was an experience in reflecting and journaling. I reviewed a lot of things, including my 12-month oracle card spread. I reviewed my oracle card for January and how it showed up in my actions during the month. I also took a look at what went well during the month, what tasks or times were more challenging, and how I recovered from those challenges. I reminded myself that I need to be kind to myself and consistently put in effort to work towards my health and fitness goals. I gently noticed what things I had been doing that are not in line with that effort, and how I could do better. Then I made three lists: To Release, To Achieve and What went Well.
To Release: This list is a list of things that had not been serving me that I am trying to move away from. For example, I had baking and overeating sweets and overuse of cellphone as two things I’d like to release in this new month.
To Achieve: this is a list of things I’m working towards or would like to see come to fruition in the month of February. For example, I’d like to work on living in alignment with my personal philosophy and use my rest day as meaningful retreat and self-care time.
What went Well: I added this category because we often don’t give ourselves credit for a job well-done and thought it would be a way to end the month on a positive note. Luckily my list of what went well was much longer than either of the two above. Keeping my last blog post in mind, one of the things I had on this list reads literally “Walking workouts - something is better than nothing.” It’s amazing the power of re-framing something from a negative to a positive.
Finally, I ended off my reflection by reviewing the oracle card for February, what it might mean and how to work with it.
Overall, I feel this exercise helped me to track my word for the year and my intentions for the year and see that I hadn’t lost sight of those things in the first month. I planned on making adjustments in my actions to stay on track and reminded myself that there were still a lot of things going well for me.
While I’m aware it’s nearly the middle of this month, I think this would be a great exercise for folks to try, especially for anyone who might be feeling like they’re already giving up on ambitions for 2019.
And so it is.
If you need some help with achieving your goals or reflecting on your progress, please contact me to see how we can work together.
Because together, we rise.