I don’t know about you, but for me, this year was full of ups and downs – really beautiful and fulfilling personal and professional dreams achieved (like getting engaged and getting fully licensed), and then some intense situations I could never have predicted like the shocking US election results or personally ending 2016 having two emergency retinal surgeries for my left eye which bedrid me and took me off work until recently — I sure didn’t see that coming! (pun intended).*

*and don’t worry – I’m now on the slow and steady mend and typing up this message with my surgeon’s approval for one hour of screen time a day!

So the bottom line is this:

There will always, ALWAYS be wildly unexpected, unpredictable, uncontrollable elements to our years. And honestly, 2017 will likely be no different.

But what we can control, what we do have some modicum of power over, is how clearly we can recognize, articulate, and execute the dreams we hold inside our hearts in order to craft a truly fulfilling life.

We have control over defining what it is we would like to do with, to quote the poet Mary Oliver, “our one wild and precious life,” and we have, to a great extent, power over how we strategically and determinedly pursue these goals day after day in the coming year despite what fate may play out on the global stage or in our personal lives.

“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.”― Louisa May Alcott

I’ve been a massive believer in this for years now and have a pretty extensive and soulful annual goal clarifying and setting process that I do each year (I’ve written about this before here and here) AND I also have a signature tool I created which helps me break down my many goals into concrete tasks that I can work on day after day, week after week, to accomplish all the big personal and professional dreams I have.

“Soul + Strategy: The Ultimate Right Brain/Left Brain Annual Planning Workbook”

And, I’m really happy to say that for the first time, I’ve compiled both the annual goal clarifying ritual of mine along with my signature, downloadable, goal execution tool into a brand new e-book: “Soul + Strategy: The Ultimate Right Brain/Left Brain Annual Planning Workbook” now available on Amazon for Kindle. 

This annual planning workbook contains a process that both soulfully clarifies your most authentic dreams and goals and then helps you work strategically with the planning tool to actually execute against them.

And honestly, this whole process has been the secret sauce to my ability to accomplish quite a bit and craft an untraditional but incredibly fulfilling life year after year.