Dear Stroke of Midnight,
You’ve got plenty of celebrating to do tonight, so I’ll make it short and sweet. Based on conversations I’ve had recently, I suggest you gift yourself with the following:
1. Take action and do the things you love. Don’t wait. What have you always wanted to do? What makes you smile? Pursue it. Dreams aren’t meant for dreaming. Visionboards work when they inspire us to visualize and actualize our dreams. Dreams aren’t meant to haunt us, but they will when left undiscovered, unacknowledged, teased and longed for. What one step can you take today toward your goal or dream? Do it now…
2. Believe in yourself, your talents, your dreams, and everything you are. Look at yourself from the perspective of a friend and realize all it has taken for you to be here, now, standing tall, celebrating all your years. You are pretty gosh darn incredible, aren’t you? (Yes, you can admit it, you are).
3. Be YOU. The more you are who you are, the more everything else blooms with beauty and thrives. It is a lifetime work and oh-so-worth it. Just be you… Be what it means to be you. Let yourself and others experience the true you!
4. Do all things joyfully. Your trademark is not so much what you do, but how you do it. If you cannot do something joyfully, don’t do it at all. And if you have to do something you don’t particularly like, find everything you can benefit from it and appreciate the gift in that. I don’t care how many positive affirmations it takes to get there. Do it. I just spent the last week doing so, and though not easy, it was an incredible life lesson worth sharing. Do all things joyfully.
5. Celebrate, dance, sing, laugh, and be weird at any chance you get. Life is short, plenty of things tear us down, make us feel heavy, and confused. It is in the moments that we allow ourselves to bask in the goodness of life, no matter how small or fleeting they may be. And best of all, celebrate before something “worth” celebrating happens. That way, you’ll train yourself to be joyful regardless of circumstance or outcome.
6. Make your passion your life work. I’ll be frank. You spend you life at work. Stop dragging your feet, working jobs you hate and watching relationships dissolve. Take your life back, define what your spirit craves and your soul aches to experience. Take back the childhood dreams of what it meant to grow up and “be somebody”. Be that somebody now. Decide that it’s not too late. Choose to have a story you love to share when you’re 80 years old. You dedicate the rest of your life to things you love anyway, might as well get paid to do what you love… eh? To get you started, here’s a great book about finding and nurturing your life work: A Life At Work by Thomas Moore)
Friends, what would you add to the list? Add yours below!
Happy 30th Birthday, Stroke of Midnight.
Don’t just make a wish, create your reality,
Lacy
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