Thanks for listening to the show in 2022! As we head into a new year, I'm sharing 5 ways to prepare yourself better than setting outdated resolutions. Because resolutions feel like ultimatums, which aren't welcomed by anyone.

1. Consider WHO you'd like to be, instead of what you'd like to accomplish.
2. What are the values you'd prefer to live into? Get the list of values I mentioned HERE.
3. Eliminate the word WANT from your vocabulary. (It's not so easy and you'll hear it slip into my conversation a few times on this one!)
4. Think about how to incorporate more fun into your life. And while we're at it, how about making "how can I?" your default question in any situation.
5. What will you START doing? And equally important, what will you STOP doing?

I share this quote in presentations all the time:

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” ― Abraham Lincoln

Let's get ready for an amazing year ahead! And remember to get your copy of the “5 Easy Ways to Start Living the Sabbatical Life” at ZenRabbit.com.

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It has been quite a year. And if you've been listening to past episodes, you know some of what I'm talking about looking forward to an amazing new year as well. So I wanted to put together backup because I'm going to talk about the use of the word wants in just a minute and I just caught myself using it. All right. I am excited to share with you some tips for getting the most out of your coming days, weeks.

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And that's why I'm popping on here and do this one last episode.

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Doing it. If you are listening like you typically do for podcasts, whatever your favorite podcast app is awesome.

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Also doing it as video going to be sharing a lot more video I typically record video for all of my interviews, but I haven't been using them and

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although everybody joins me, so love honored to about Episode Four overall, that'd be much appreciated. Alright, so on to looking ahead to the year. First thing I'm going to recommend avoiding resolutions we hear people talking all the way all the time about New Year's resolutions. And I think people are starting to move away from that a little bit more than they ever have before. You got the word resolution to me it's kind of like ultimately, no one likes.

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So what what did you do instead of making resolutions instead of making goals.

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yourself

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what would I like to do? So, maybe are thinking about someone who likes to become someone who someone who eats healthier. Someone who works out three times a week, someone who keeps their promises someone who enjoys life to the point and then what would that person do? Here's here's how you get into what would you do? What are you going to do in the coming year would you like to be and then how would that person act? What actions would that person take and become that person have you step into becoming that person? Second thing, eliminate them down and then move them around?

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What values would you prefer? What values would you prefer to live into? Whatever you'd like to see in your world from others. You have to become that yourself. You can't expect others to act with integrity for example, if we are not acting with integrity, and when I talked about specifically that one is a lot of people are like people talking about living in integrity or expecting other people to act with integrity. Coming down to argue acting with integrity, not just when you're dealing with other people because they need to live with the challenge but it's easier. A lot of times to act with integrity do what you say you're going to do when it comes to other people doing the things you say you're going to do for someone else. What about we talked about for years, acting with integrity around the things you tell yourself, you're going to do for yourself. That means keeping commitment to yourself because a lot of people are worried to everyone else, except for ourselves. Because we say well, no one else is gonna know. It's just something I told myself I was gonna do but

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don't keep it to yourself. You're teaching yourself not to trust yourself.

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It's actually a very, very major date, and then it extends. So that's when you start seeing other people not keeping them committed to you start getting How can you keep commitments to yourself, how can you live in integrity with yourself? And what are the boundaries

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what other values I can list a link to a list in the show notes if you'd like some help getting started on the topic.

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Which is kind of

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the prescribed outline and I'm here talking so one of the other things one of the things that I did left this week earlier this week was write and list all of my minutes from here because if we are not celebrating our wins, we are less likely to get more things to celebrate, to celebrate and appreciate what you have to appreciate. I myself I'm definitely a lot of people that are around me not guessing I know a lot of people look around me, my friends like my clients don't celebrate the wins, because they're not

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always more of them and that is cumulative.

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They'll start stacking up, you'll get even more, more bigger grammar and you'll get even bigger ways to celebrate as well. So I made an entire notebook page. And then it went past that of when. If that is something you're not doing anything else New Year's Eve because I know we get to the stage we're not out drinking and partying anymore and sitting around what am I going to do?

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Make a list of and celebrate every one of you however you want to celebrate and combine that with figuring out what the values you want to live in you'd like to live into this year. So I'm going to catch myself on that word one. We're getting to that still.

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The values that you'd like to live into. And the reason that came up was because I mentioned the bad athletes and and that was one of my wins. For this past year I was having the opportunity to speak there. One of the things that I talked about the main focus of what I talked about was making decisions and within making decisions, how important it is to be aware of what your most important values are and starting from that place. All right, going back to number three, eliminating the word want because it's coming from a place of lack.

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Meaning, don't already have it. It isn't anywhere in your world. It comes from a place of lack and scarcity. Wanting only leads to more wanting, see if you can replace the word want with I would like to have and believe that what you are saying you want is already here. It's already here. It just hasn't made itself known yet. It's a it's a reframe. And instead can you think about being grateful for it as if it is already here because it is whatever it is. whatever this thing is that you want. Can you allow yourself the space for it to come into your life? This is making sense.

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Whenever somebody says I want it doesn't promote habit, you only promote it promotes wanting. So if you believe that is already yours, even if it hasn't appeared in physical form yet, believe that. It is already here. Let me tell you a quick story. Last week I was visiting my friend Jen and I was supposed to leave Friday. But the big storm was coming through.

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Temperatures in Cincinnati were supposed to be like 30 below zero with wind chill. ICE was coming. Some maybe some snow snow was coming to other parts of the country, which is going to mess up travel causes all kinds of delays and cancellation. So I wasn't thinking I wouldn't necessarily that my wouldn't be able to get out you know, in Cincinnati, but the plane coming from wherever was coming from which I think was Chicago. Very close. So I changed my plane to leave a day earlier. So I'm sitting in the airport for the 545 flight on Thursday instead of Friday. And the plane pulls up to the gate. I'm like yes okay, our plane is here. We're going everybody and nobody is boarded. It's passporting time everybody's still sitting in in the area waiting and people are starting to look around and go while recording and one of the the employees gate. Employees get on and said yes the plane is here. However, because of all the delays and cancellations of other flights, we don't have any flight attendant. We will do what we can to see if we can find some. But something essentially you said it's not looking good. And a bunch of people got up and went to see if they could change their flight. So there's a big long line at the end of the day area where people can, you know, talk to an attendant to talk to a gate attendant to change their flight. I did check on my phone to see if there were any other flights out of Cincinnati that night, which there were not so the only other thing to do was to immediately go into gratitude. I sat there I closed my eyes. I put my head down and whether you want to call it rare or manifesting I oh I did text Jen and say hey, they said there there are no flight attendants. I'm gonna manifest some and she said alright, I'll work on that to you. She was already driving back home and I put my head down and I just immediately went to gratitude and stayed there for about 20 minutes, just thinking and thanking the universe for bringing flight attendants. Thank you for bringing flight attendants. Thank you for getting us home safely. Continuously, just 20 minutes of thanking, thanking and thanking the universe for bringing flight attendants alternately with imagining the gate attend the gate person announcing that they have found flight attendants. So about 20 minutes into this exercise of flight attendant shows up the entire area of passengers is clapping and cheering they still need to more. I go back. I'm still Thank you universe for bringing us flight attendants with full certainty that they would show up. Flight Attendant shows up people in the waiting area go crazy cheering and about five minutes later the third way and you are on our way.

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Maybe a total of an hour and a half delay as we reporting and getting on and I was talking with the one who is standing at the entrance to the plane as everybody was boarding and I said thank you so much for showing up. And she said yeah, I was already here because the flight I came in on was got here but the flight I was supposed to fly out on was canceled. So the thing is, all three flight attendants were very likely already in the airport. They just had to be called in going back to the feeling of gratitude and thanking the universe as if something is already done.

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Whatever it is you are quote unquote wanting whatever it is you would like to bring into your light is already in the airport. It's already here. It's just a matter of calling it in with gratitude. Alright, number four, how can you incorporate more fun in your life? Life is finite. It is not meant to be work work work all the time. You've heard that the Life is short thing Yeah, life. I prefer to say life is finite. Life is going to be however long or short. It's going to be what we know though, is it is finite there isn't we just don't know what exactly it is. Have fun. When this is something I hear a lot too. I will have fun when I lose 50 pounds when I retire when the kids go away, move away. Know the time to have fun is now now now now because No, that was all we have here that all the time to really registering like you know it intellectually but know it on a visceral level.

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And until you do, you are going to be chasing something that you're not actually capturing.

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You're just gonna be in the chase board. So how would you again call that in and have more fun this year? Speaking of how can I have more fun making How can I your default question? I know from personal experience, again, I can't do that because comes more naturally, then how can I do that? Asking that question instead and bypassing the natural inclination to say I can't do that. Or I can't have that. Because I can't whatever afford it don't have the time. Ask instead. How can I when you're doing that? You are giving your mind a destination. It's like you're setting a GPS for you're giving your mind a puzzle to solve. And so even when you're not specifically thinking about how can i Your mind is still working in the background to figure out how you can it's the greatest example of this. That is another story. If you've been listening to past episodes, you've heard my story about the sabbatical road trip I took in the 19 year old that road trip with her came about because I knew I had to take some time off. I had to take a break. But how could I do it when I had this calf that needed sub q fluids twice a week? And how could I leave her with somebody? What it didn't I wasn't getting answered.

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It was like going to leave her with did I really want to leave her for a month. She was she was she was very attached to me and what what was going to be best thing so then it became okay, how can I do this trip with her? So first it was how can I do it at all? Then when it became apparent that I was going to take her with me? How can I do it with her?

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And that helped define which where I was going and how I was getting there. But it all came about from asking the question, How can I please instead of going well I have this cat and I can't leave her with anyone. So I can't go How can I do this? And it worked out fabulously. I really the trip of a lifetime for both of us because of the question how we cannot.

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Get a copy there for free. Look forward to sharing that with you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai