There are just a few more hours before the curtains close on 2016. While some parts may have been great and others sad, through it all, I’m sure we would have learnt valuable lessons. I always journal my thoughts at this time of year so as to give thanks for what the old year brought and chart the way forward applying the lessons to the new year.
There are many lessons 2016 taught me and while these are personal to me, I will share the top 3 with you.
1. You are what you think
Whenever you place conditions or obstacles in your path to achievement, just know that your thoughts are greater than you. You can do anything you set your mind to, whatever you think about, you become. I’ll tell you how I overcame those self-defeating thoughts.
At the end of 2015, I reconnected with a special lady – fellow Huff Post contributor Adanna Austin. She came to me for advice on writing a book and shared her great plans for leaving her day job and charting her territory in life and business coaching. Little did I know I was in for a surprise. I shared with her my two experiences of self-publishing and entrepreneurship and a few days later she offered to coach me for free for 90 days!
In those first few months of the year, we met in person and on Skype and over drinks and coffee we transformed my destiny. I began writing for 4 more magazines and my Book Talk & Jazz Event was borne. Here I went on to host two successful and sold out events in April and October of this year.
Book Talk & Jazz - October 2016
It was amazing to see the eyes and faces in the audience light up and hear the sound of laughter (and I was told even tears of empathy) as I told my story through my two books uncut and straight from the heart. A story of how I transitioned from a dreamer to a do-er and started living my passion and purpose. At first I doubted I would be able to afford to host these events in style, but I pulled it off with no staff and it was all kinds of beautiful. (You can read all about it here).
I even got cold feet and had doubts of pulling off the delivery, far less to do it more than once, but Adanna said to me after the first event, “this is not luck girl, this is pure talent!” And so today when I think limiting thoughts, I quickly blink it back to darkness and pull up the screen on positivity and light with thoughts of “I can” visualizing my outcome in my mind, writing down the details and speaking positive affirmations.
2. Guard your words, lest you eat it
Despite all of this perceived success, some things in my life were still making me unhappy. I started to speak certain negative things into the universe when I of all people knew I shouldn’t. Then one day when things had improved, boom, God heard me and as I was driving along minding my own business, a car struck mine and I was injured in an accident.
For those first moments of uncertainty and excruciating pain when I did not know what was going to happen to me, I promised myself that I would do my best to fulfill my destiny if I were to recover. While riding in the ambulance, I could almost hear the Lord say, “Not yet, you have more work to do.” It suddenly became clearer to me that I had a specific purpose to fulfill in life and it was not done as yet.
Moral: Everybody has bad times and rough days, but it’s only for a time. Think positive thoughts and speak positive affirmations over your life and you will witness it transform 360 degrees…almost like a miracle.
3. Change comes from within
On the interpersonal side now, I’ve known this for quite some time, but I experienced it twice first hand in the past 4 years. You can’t will people to change or do what you want them to do, no matter how convincing or enticing you are.
People will do what they want to do, until they arrive at their own epiphanies or life changing moments. On many occasions, by the time this has happened it’s too late. The change may come either at a time of a crisis or like a limited warranty that has expired, it may now mean little in the grand scheme of things, as the time for that experience has simply passed and no more captures the allure like it once did.
The trick is to have a spirit of discernment, so time and energy is not wasted. With age comes wisdom and experience, so the same mistakes are not made twice.
Wishing you a new year 2017 filled with peace, love, faith, joy, contentment and abundance.
May this be your best year yet.
Carolyn K. Correia is the author of Thinking out Loud, How To Find Yourself and Claim What’s Yours and she missed the boat on love. She is also a communications consultant, freelance writer, blogger and motivational speaker. Learn more here www.carolyncorreia.com or stay updated on Facebook –CarolynCorreiaAuthor.
