When I lived in Dallas pre-marriage and pre-kids, I used to gather with some of my friends and watch The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Yes, shallow TV. Yes, it’s slightly embarrassing to admit, but after long days at work, we could kick back, watch some mindless shows and laugh. Eventually I stopped watching because it left me feeling like I just ate junk food. The drama producers stir up didn’t settle right in my gut. We don’t need TV to watch people be mean to each other.

I hadn’t watched the show in years until last year’s debut of The Golden Bachelor, about a 72-year-old man named Gerry Turner, whose grown daughters want him to find love again after the loss of his wife/their mom six years prior. Now, this show vibed differently and I wanted to check it out. Women laughed together. They generally supported one another. There was a focus on friendships over a contest of who could get the guy. But the best part of the show was its message that life isn’t over if you are in your 60s or 70s. And if people start treating you as invisible as you get older, you don’t need to act invisible. The show left many people with a reminder to keep living and laughing, no matter what your age.

Keep living. We can all use this reminder once in a while. Days flip by and we rinse and repeat. We get stuck in our routines and slowly drift further away from doing the things we love and want to do most. Maybe our time is devoted to our professions, our kids, caregiving or fulfilling our responsibilities, and time to ourselves to just reflect, think or fully absorb our lives gets edged out.

When we lose time to just be ourselves and be with ourselves, our sense of enthusiasm can begin to erode. This is why I love the start of a new year. No matter what life is like as a year wraps up and a new one begins, it’s a calendar reminder to stop, reflect, take inventory and start painting the picture of how you want to see the next year unfold. Yes, I know, we don’t control all the things, but we sure can influence a whole lot. Like the thoughts we choose and the actions we take.

One of the most impactful ways we can shake up our lives is to spend time asking ourselves some powerful questions:

Another way to accurately see and savor the 365 days in your rearview memory is to create some powerful lists. This counteracts our negativity bias, the tendency we all have to put greater weight on negative experiences than on positive experiences.

I also love choosing a word of the year to keep a steady reminder of the year I want to create. Two years ago my word was “intentional.” Every decision I made, every day I woke up, I’d ask myself: How can I be intentional today? Last year my word was “clarity.” When there are multiple roles and responsibilities to juggle and unexpected things pop up, having clarity (on goals and intentions) soothes the mind!

Every new year, the calendar serves up a reminder with fireworks, noisemakers and a giant shiny ball dropping that it’s time to live. Even if analyzing your year and taking inventory isn’t your jam, you can still ask yourself: How well am I doing at truly living?

 

What will 2024 look like for each of us? What will we create? Grandmaster Tony Morris, owner of Sun Soo Martial Arts, said we sometimes get swept up in the current of our lives and drift away from having “a feedback loop,” an awareness and reflection practice of how we are doing that allows us to make adjustments as we go. Just like driving a car, he says, we make conscious choices all the time using an internal feedback loop — wheel adjustments and speed alterations — to keep us safely on the road. Do we do the same when driving our lives?

 

Oftentimes, we aren’t pausing to reflect and revamp our approach if what we are doing isn’t giving us the results or outcomes we want. Reflective questions can be powerful.

Revamp your approach if what you are doing isn’t working. Having a clear vision for what you want is powerful. “You can’t get excited if you aren’t clear,” Morris says. “Practice being in the state of expectation. Whatever you are excited about for the year ahead, whatever is fun for you, get in the practice of expecting.”