Are you ready to make this year the best year of your life? I know I am!

Traditionally, with each new year, we strive to become what we think will be a better version of ourselves.

In doing so, we think about goals, both professional and personal, commitments to relationships, health objectives, travel plans and whatever else we think will make us “better” and dare I say, happier.

While there’s certainly nothing wrong with setting goals for ourselves, I’ve often wondered if what lies beneath even our best intentions is the belief that, in our current state, we are somehow not OK.

I know I have definitely felt that more than once but thankfully, I have come to realize that striving for some idealized self-image is just not compatible with living my best life.

In fact, I believe that living our best life has nothing at all to do with our outer achievements and has everything to do with simply loving ourselves.

Think about that for a moment. What if the key to having a truly amazing and abundant life was as simple as learning to love and accept yourself exactly as you are?

Now if you tend to put others’ needs before your own, I understand that focusing on yourself may not come naturally. You may even think that loving yourself first feels a bit selfish.

If that’s the case, consider this. When you love yourself and take care of yourself first, you can feel confident that you will be coming from a place of inner abundance. The more we fill ourselves up, the more that spills out into the world!

So, as you reflect back on 2022 and contemplate how you can make 2023 your best year ever, I invite you to get curious.

How can you rise up and be who you’re meant to be?

How can you courageously let go of what is not serving you and connect with your inner calling?

How can you truly love and accept yourself?

We are only given one life, my friend, and that one beautiful life is waiting for you. Whatever your reality, it is never to late to invest in yourself and have the life that YOU truly desire.

In closing, I want to leave you with a poem by L.R. Knost. Whenever I feel myself being pulled off my path, this poem always reminds me to shine my light.

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.

All things break. And all things can be mended.

Not with time, as they say, but with intention.

So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.

The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.