In this episode Dr. Cari Wise discusses five important questions to ask oneself before the start of a new year.
These questions are meant to help individuals create something bigger and more expansive for themselves in 2024 or as they begin any new journey.
The first question is about recognizing and acknowledging the successes from the previous year. The second question focuses on identifying discouragements or regrets from the previous year. The third question delves into the excuses individuals make for not achieving their goals.
The fourth question prompts individuals to evaluate if they want the next year to be similar to the previous one.
The fifth and final question focuses on the willingness to do the inner work necessary to create something different.
Dr. Wise emphasizes the importance of doing the inner work and taking control of one’s future.
Key Takeaways
- It is important to recognize and acknowledge the successes in all aspects of life.
- Identifying and releasing discouragements or regrets can allow for a fresh start.
- Being honest with oneself and identifying excuses for unaccomplished goals is crucial for personal growth.
- Doing the inner work, understanding oneself, and changing perspective can create positive change in life.
- Happiness and wellbeing come from knowing one’s power and taking control of one’s future.
- Letting go of societal expectations and focusing on what truly matters is important for personal fulfillment.
Resources:
Website: https://joyfuldvm.com
Vet Life Academy: http://joyfuldvm.com/vetlifeacademy
VetMed; JOY CLUB: https://joyfuldvm.com/joyclub
Music Credit: Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
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VetMed; JOY CLUB
Music Credit: Music by Lesfm from Pixabay
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain typos. Hi there. I'm Dr. Cari Wise, veterinarian, certified life coach and certified quantum human design specialist. If you are a veterinary professional looking to uplevel your life and your career, or maybe looking to go in an entirely new direction, then what I talk about here on the Joyful DVM podcast is absolutely for you. Let's get started. Hello my friends. Welcome back to the joyful DVM podcast. Today I wanted to spend a little bit of time thinking about the year that we are finishing up as we get ready to head into the next year of 2024. And there are five questions you must ask yourself before 2024 begins if you want to create something bigger and more expansive for yourself in the new year. Now, this time of year is very common for people to be setting goals, to looking forward, to really starting to feel a little bit energized, but it's also a pretty common time of year to feel discouraged and frustrated about what you didn't accomplish in the year that's closing out. And all of those experiences are very normal, but if we get trapped in one or the other, it actually has a massive impact on what we do moving forward. So there's five questions that you must ask yourself as you begin this new year. And honestly, these five questions are questions that you could ask yourself anytime you begin a new adventure. So let's take a look at each of them and then I'm going to explain why they are so critical in the path forward for your future. So question number one, what success am I taking forward with me? So think about the year that is closing out. Think about 2023. What successes are you going to take forward with you? This is one of the areas that we miss the boat very commonly. We don't slow down enough to recognize the wins that we've had in the year that is finishing. It's really easy for us to look at what didn't go right, and we're gonna get to that in question number two. But for question number one, I want you to give yourself the opportunity to think about the entire year. Kind of play it back in your mind like a movie beginning from January, moving forward. Consider your life, your relationships, your health, your work, your career, your finances, your hobbies, everything that's important to you. Think about all of those things very intentionally and recognize the successes that you had, the wins, the progress, and how you can take that forward with you. Make that list and notice that when you think about those things, you automatically feel better, you feel a little bit lighter, and this is very important and I'll explain why in just a second. Question number two then is what discouragements or regrets are hanging on from this year? Now you're gonna recognize those because they are going to feel heavy. So again, kind of take an inventory of the last year, and I don't want you to dig too deep into this. I don't want you to go intentionally hunting for things that are discouraging or regretful, but you are going to know which ones are hanging on because they feel heavy and they're coming to mind very quickly. When I tell you to think about the year that's finishing up and consider your life, your relationships, your career, your finances, your health, your hobbies, and the other things that are in important to you. So what's hanging on that feels heavy, that feels frustrating, discouraging, regretful. Make that list. That's question number two. Then question number three, I want you to get really honest with yourself and ask yourself, what excuses are you making? We all make excuses for why we didn't accomplish or achieve what we thought we were going to accomplish and achieve in any given period of time. So as we're closing out a calendar year, it's very easy for us to look back and think to last year and the things that we thought we would accomplish or achieve in 2023 and having gone through this activity, questions, number one, your successes, and number two, your discouragements. You've probably been able to identify the gap. You've been able to find where you didn't achieve, if you will, what you thought that you would, how your life isn't different than you expected it to be. So then ask yourself why and listen to the response. Now, I'm not asking you to come up with some really great reason. I'm not asking you to, to get all butterflies and rainbows here. I want you to be very honest with yourself. What reason are you giving yourself? What's the excuse? Was it you had not enough time, you didn't have enough money, you didn't have enough energy, somebody else needed you, you had to work. What are the excuses that you're making? And just be honest. There's no wrong answers here. This is a reflection activity and it's important for us to be very honest with ourselves. This is a safe place for you to be honest. Nobody can see what you're writing down or what you're thinking about. So get really honest with yourself. What excuses are you making for why your life is today the way that it is in any areas that you're not satisfied? That's question number three. Question number four. This is a pretty black and white question. Do you want next year to be much like this one? So think back to 2023 as a whole. Do you wanna get to the end of 2024 and be in the place that you are right now? Some of you, it's gonna be yes, and some of you it's gonna be no. And for most of us it's gonna be somewhere in the middle. There are some things that you think will be just fine if they're exactly the same a year from now, but there are other things that are easy for you to identify that you really want to be different. So do you want 2024 to be much like 2023? Yes, no, a little bit of each. Write that down, bring that to mind. And then question number five, am I willing to do the inner work to create something different? We've probably all identified something in this activity that we want to be different at the end of 2024. And so the question is, are you willing to do the work? And when I say do the work, notice the question. Was it, are you just willing to do the work, not physical activity and action? That's not what I'm asking you. I'm asking you, are you willing to do the inner work to create something different? Let me explain what I'm talking about here. If we go back to question number one, and I ask you, what successes are you taking forward? Notice that as you thought about that you felt lighter, that created more positive emotion, a higher vibration frequency. It was lighter, it just felt good. But then we got to question number two, what discouragements or regrets are hanging on? And those feel heavy. As you think about those things, you probably feel frustrated. You might even feel shame. You may feel sadness or hopelessness. Just notice whatever you're you're feeling, give yourself a pat on the back. It's really all gonna be okay. We're being curious here and compassionate. There's no need for judgment or shame, But I want you to notice the emotional impact of your perspective, of your progress, the perspective where you believe you were successful and the perspective where you believe that you weren't. And then notice how easy it is to make excuses for why you didn't make the progress that you believed you wanted to make. These excuses are really important because this is where you're giving your power away. They're external circumstances, they're probably other people. They can be things like job and time and money, all of which are neutral. Until we give it power to be something different, we need to understand where we're giving our power to because if we don't identify these places that take our power away, then we will also not recognize our opportunity to take our power back and to actually create something very different when we do. So, We just keep giving our power away because we stay very, very busy and we don't make the time to do the only thing that even matters, which is to work on what's going on on the inside of each and every one of us. On the inside, there's a story on the inside, there's perspective, and that's as individual to each of us as blades of a grass. That being said, if you don't take the time to get to know you, to understand what drives your actions to learn that your success is not something that can be measured, it is something that you claim, then there's not going to be any way for 2024 to be different than 2023. When I ask that question. Question number four, do I want 2024 to be much like 2023? The reason I ask this question is because if we don't do that inner work, we will emotionally end up in the exact same place. We will go forward from where we are right now and how we feel emotionally, our state of emotional wellbeing. Also, as I call our net emotional state, if our net emotional state doesn't change, then our outcomes will never change. Our experiences will never change, our circumstances will never change. It's all driven by the way that we feel day in and day out. And the only way we can change the way we feel is if we are willing to do the inner work to feel differently. This world teaches us that in order to feel happy and to feel proud and to feel excited and motivated, that we must first achieve something. That action comes before emotion, but that is never, ever true. This is one of the most important lessons for all of us to learn, and until we learn it, we will work ourselves to death trying to work our way into happiness. My friends, happiness and wellbeing and peace and calm and joy do not come from circumstances. They come from a knowing that you are going to be okay no matter what happens in the world, that you are powerful, that you get to decide for you, that you and you alone can change your story. And that change in story will change your circumstances. It's cause and effect not the other way around. When you are willing to do that inner work to create something different for yourself, change becomes inevitable, but it does take effort. I think it is so important for us to bring this to mind because we seem to think that if we just work harder, that the things that we want in our lives will to show up. And there are a lot of people out there who will tell you that Many of our parents and teachers have told us if we work hard enough that we'll have everything that we ever wanted, but they've got it backwards. That's not how this game works. You must first have peace with who you are and know who you are. Be honest with yourself about who you are. There's nothing to be ashamed of here. Who you are is individual to you. It's not who your parents thought you needed to be or who some teachers thought you needed to be. Though I'm sure there have been many people in your life who have given their opinions on what kind of person you're supposed to be and what a responsible person does and what you should want to achieve and accumulate. I'm giving you the opportunity here to set all of that aside to consider that maybe none of that actually matters. And the only thing that does matter is who you actually are. What's important to you, what interests you? What is it that you want for your life, not what you've been told you are supposed to want for your life. That's a different question. So set all that aside and ask yourself what is it that you actually want? And then ask yourself question number three, what excuses are you making? Why don't you have it? Because the odds are whatever falls into the answer section of that question is going to be a whole lot of like ball and chain, if you will. It's all of these restrictions and limits that have been put on your life, that you've accepted on your life without even realizing you had a choice. You have nothing but opportunity here. That's the most exciting thing because once you start to identify the excuses that you've made for why you haven't got the life that you actually want, then you can start to see that those excuses are just nothing but excuses, that they seem like they were really powerful and legitimate. But once we start to look at them and identify them, we can start to see they actually don't have any power at all except for the power that we give them. And you can take all of your power back. You get to decide for you 100% of the time. I'm sure by now you've heard me say that a million times, and I will probably say it a million more or many million more, because you do get to decide for you 100% of the time. And furthermore, even if you don't recognize it, you already are deciding for you 100% of the time. But when we mask our own decisions with excuses, with deflection of responsibility, that makes us feel hopeless, powerless, really defeated, that makes us think we have to work harder to get things to change. And in doing so, all we end up doing is becoming exhausted and nothing ever makes any change at all. So as you look at the year ahead, just know that the year ahead, like the week ahead is nothing but unlimited possibility. When you're ready, you can decide what you want for your life, not what you think your parents will approve of, not what you think your colleagues would be impressed by, but what you want for your life. And once you start to ask that question of yourself and answer it for yourself, you might be surprised on what you find. Let yourself be surprised. Let yourself be delighted in what comes up. Release all the responsibility and the pressure to impress people around you. There are no rules here. You get to want whatever it is that you want. And as you identify what it is that you want for your life, now take a look at 2023 and ask yourself, what successes am I bringing forward? Embrace those successes, all of them. Bring them with you. Remind yourself of them frequently. And if you're like, Cari, I can't even come up with one success. I'm gonna give you one, you made it. You're still here. That's a big deal. Do not underestimate the power of your mere existence, my friend. Celebrate that. You've made it another trip around the sun. It's amazing that we are still here, that we have opportunity to make choices, to take action, to impact each other. Take every one of those successes forward with you. Think about your friends, your family, your colleagues, your clients, the patients that you saw, you made a difference. It's so easy to just kind of brush off all of that impact because of the handful of things that didn't turn out the way that you wanted them to do. Not let the discouraging things that happened last year be what take you forward into 2024. Notice them honor them, but leave them behind My friends, we only take with us what we believe about the past. None of what's happened in the past is actually happening right now. So we can decide to simply box up and leave behind the things that are not gonna serve us moving forward to trust that we've learned, whatever lessons we needed to learn from that and to no longer allow it to have a heavy power over us. Instead, think about the winds. Think about the progress. Celebrate your mere existence and take that light forward with you. Recognize the excuses you make for why this year didn't turn out the way that you thought it was going to. And then take your power away from those excuses. Recognize that those things you identify are nothing but excuses, and they're not the real truth either that there was choice, you had a part in all of that. I'm not saying that to judge you or to shame you. That is the last thing that I want to do. But I think until we get really honest with ourselves about the choices that we're making and why we are making them, it's impossible for us to take all of our power back and to create something different. As long as we want to continue to blame things like time and money and energy, and whatever other circumstance you wanna put in there, you will always be at the effect of those things. Your life will never have the opportunity to become all that it was meant to be. If you constantly give your power away to these things that you'll never control, you don't need them to be controlled, and you don't need to control them to have what you want to do, what you came here to do. So answer the question, what excuses are you making? And then just recognize all of that as opportunity to take your power back. And as you do that, your net emotional state going into 2024 will automatically be higher than it is right now. When you take forward your successes, when you box up and leave behind your regrets, when you disempower your excuses, those three things will automatically raise your net emotional state. You will feel better for having done it, which means you are starting off better off than where you are right now. And as you continue to practice this same kind of activity throughout the year, your net emotional state will continue to rise. This is the inner work I'm talking about. We have to be curious. We must be compassionate. And as we do this and we start to improve our wellbeing for ourselves, we can't help but make positive changes in our lives as we get ready to move into 2024 here at Joyful DVM, there are all kinds of things on the horizon. It's an exciting time of year, but we start to plan and look at everything that we're gonna be rolling out over the next 12 months. And we have to laugh because we spend a lot of time planning, and then sometimes life likes to shift things around, but we know that's coming too. And so we don't really make too big of a deal of it. At the end of the day, it is what it is. And if we get so attached to our plans that we become frustrated every time something pops up that we didn't expect, then we offer ourselves the opportunity to just stay frustrated. I don't want that for you either, but I do want you to give yourself the opportunity to look forward, to consider what is it that I want to create? What is it that I want to change? And then take that one step for for one step further, and imagine that you're already there. If you're at the end of next year and everything that you want for this next year is already inevitably true, how do you feel? What's different? Tap into the energy of that because it's available to you right now. You don't have to prove it to yourself. You don't have to achieve the circumstances before you can have the permission to experience the emotion around those successes. We have it all backwards in our world. You don't have to work harder in order to have permission to be happy. It's quite the opposite. Give yourself permission to be happy and the work actually doesn't end up being very hard at all. So five questions for you to consider as you get ready to move into 2024. And if you'd like a little bit more structure around setting these intentions for 2024, then jump into the VetMed Joy Club. We're getting ready to do a live workshop. And if you happen to catch this podcast episode after we do the setting your intentions for 2024 workshop, don't worry. The replay is gonna be available to all VetMed Joy Club active members. So whether this is sometime before the end of 20, 24 or three weeks in to the new year or three months, if this message has resonated with you, I encourage you to join us in the VetMed Joy Club. Listen to that replay if a live event has already passed and take control of your future. This is the inner work I'm talking about, and when you decide to go into that journey of getting to know yourself and deciding who you are, everything my friends is possible. All right, that's gonna wrap it up for this week. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.