It always begins slowly, a sort of creeping awareness. First there are the Labor Day picnics and back-to-school sales signaling summer’s end. Then hints of color start showing at the edges of the maple leaves right around the time I’m adding an extra layer when I go outside in the mornings and noticing pumpkin options at the local coffee shop.
Then it starts picking up speed. September rolls into October and it’s jack-o-lanterns on porches and the first questions about Thanksgiving plans. November seems to have only three weeks (I swear that one of them goes missing every year!) and December? I don’t even know what to tell you about December other than that it usually feels like I grab it by its tail and just hang on for dear life by my fingernails. Suddenly January arrives and everyone wants to know about my resolutions for the year to come and all I can do is stare at them blankly and wonder what on earth happened to the end of last year.
Sound familiar?
This was my truth for years, you guys. YEARS.
Between family spread out around the country at the holiday season, a business that hit its busiest peak in the fall going into the New Year, and being a multi-passionate person with my fingers in a lot of pies, I spent more than a decade ending every year feeling as though I’d been run over by a freight train. Goals left unmet. Family and friend fly-bys that never felt like enough. Too many social obligations. Not enough sleep (or quiet or exercise or healthy food or general self-care). Throw in the inevitable emotional hurdles (time passing, lost loved ones missed…you know the drill) and the end of the year just always seemed to leave me feeling like the wind had been knocked right out of me.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
For real, you guys. It really, really doesn’t. It is actually possible to finish the year with a sense of calm and focus and- gasp - even some real joy.
It wasn’t some huge sweeping change that turned things around. I didn’t quit my job or boycott the holidays or run away to an off-grid retreat in Tasmania for two months (though, if the opportunity for that one comes up, I’m outta here, you guys!). It was a bunch of small changes and practices that fit into the life I already had that transformed the last few months of the year for me.
And they will for you, too.
Look. The end of the year is still the end of the year. There is a lot going on and a lot to wrap up and potentially a lot of emotions that come up. But it doesn’t all have to feel out of control and we don’t have to feel like we were run over by a train when it’s all over.
So I invite you to join me in this free challenge to Uncrazy 2018 and end the year empowered, knowing that you brought it to a close on your own terms.
Together we’ll tackle one incremental idea each week with manageable actions that will fit into your real life. Designed to create movement right from the start, we will cut through the fluff and start making real changes in less than an hour a week.
Let’s do it, you guys.
Let’s un-crazy the end of our 2018 together and bring the joy and the calm back into the last eight weeks of our year.
Join me!
What it will look like:
The Uncrazy 2018 Challenge will run for eight weeks, November 3- December 28, 2018.
Cost: FREE
You will receive an email on Saturday, November 3, outlining the challenge and going over what to expect during our time together.
You will receive one email each Sunday for eight weeks beginning November 4. Each email will cover one topic and have one action that can be completed in an hour or less aimed at implementing the topic into your life. There will be suggestions for further reading, action, or engagement at the end of each email for anyone who would like to pursue the topic more deeply.
You are invited to join a private Facebook group created just for this challenge where we can ask questions and support each other as a community during our time together. This is entirely optional- if you don’t have a Facebook account, that’s okay! This is simply an extra layer of support.
I will go live in the Facebook group every Wednesday to field questions and engage in discussion. Again, this is optional.
You will receive a final closing email on Friday, December 28, that includes everything we did together in the challenge in a well-designed, downloadable pdf.
