Andrea Thiel Connell

I’ve been reviewing the past year as I believe most people have been doing. It’s what we tend to do at the beginning of each new year. I’ve been counting my blessings as well as taking stock of all the pros and cons of my life as it stands today. Then my thinking made a radical shift.

I was thinking of the changes I would like to make in my life, which had begun to sound eerily much the same as last year when I spontaneously remembered an event that had happened in my life this year which had had a profound affect on me. I realized in that moment that there were many such events that had come dangerously close to being put on the back burner; out of sight and out of mind. I quickly flipped to a fresh clean page in my journal and began listing all the new things, events and relationships I have experienced this past year. I was amazed to witness right there in black and white written in my own hand, how much new had actually happened! This was exciting! Turns out that 2010 wasn’t at all the same as any other year after all.

I attended meetings, gatherings and symposiums that were important to my personal and business development, I have met a ton of brilliant kind-hearted people who stimulate my heart and my brain, I have rekindled a very lovely dear friendship after too much time had passed, I’ve re-connected in a meaningful way to each of my siblings, I have developed new adult relationships with all 5 of our kids, I have written countless articles and have been published by some of the best e-zines out there on the web, I have had the extreme pleasure of caring for 20 cats this year – (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!) I opened a Facebook account, I started this blog, I did my website – MYSELF!, and it goes on and on…

These were all things that I hadn’t planned, that I didn’t list in my intentional goals for 2010, but they were far and away the most important. No my kitchen isn’t renovated yet, and I don’t have new living room furniture, my book isn’t published – but I’m getting closer, and I haven’t found homes for all my cats but in light of all that has happened, well, it’s all good!

I am excited now about the many unknown, unplanned for things that I will encounter this year. I did remember too, making a promise to myself to seize new opportunities and to embrace fresh starts  – to say YES to more, and because it worked  I will promise this to myself again this year!

Before I stumbled on my almost forgotten blessing I was sitting in my left brain, being very serious, planning strategy for the year to come. Although my brain was fully engage my heart wasn’t. My heart jumped to attention when I began remembering the spontaneous accomplishments of the last year.   Rest assured of the bounty that sits within our grasp when we give ourselves enough slack to reach out and grab it! The new opportunities, of which you are not yet aware, may well offer you the missing links to your dreams come true. It would be a shame to miss them because you were busy focused on a plan!

Before you focus on creating a new plan review the old year, list the new opportunities you enjoyed, the new people you met, the new books and authors you discovered, the accomplishments you forgot about – did they come by good planning or by good fortune? We tend to forget about the things we didn’t organize through our ego mind.

The synchronicity, the coincidences, the out of the blue opportunities and the random wrong turns are where the real magic of life happens so rather than creating an iron clad plan of attack for 2011 try following your heart and see what the meandering garden path has to offer.

Wishing you all a happy, wondrous New Year filled with joy, health and peace. And by the way, if you are reading this, YOU are one of my many blessings – Thank You!