Happy New Year!
It’s the first post of 2013, and I want to make it meaningful. Having talked about why New Year’s resolutions don’t really work earlier this week, this post provides an alternative to rules we make to break.
2013 is going to be a big year for me. In the latter part of 2012, I decided to spend this year focusing all my efforts on working full-time on this site, so I’ve dedicated a lot of time to pondering, planning and personal readiness.
This post starts the year by bringing the blog back to what the site is about: shedding our conditioning and creating the lives we want, from the inside out. Ditching false beliefs about ourselves, others and the world, and uncovering our own set of values, desires and goals.
In a nutshell: authenticity.
So here’s 20 quotes and 13 questions about authentic living that I’ve been thinking about over the past few weeks, and will continue to reflect on as the year progresses. Enjoy!
20 Quotes
1. “The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare out behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” – Steve Furtick
2. “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” – C.G. Jung
3. “Our power lies in our small daily choices, one after another, to create eternal ripples of a life well lived.” – Molli Marti
4. “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Rumi
5. “Everything will line up perfectly when knowing and living the truth becomes more important than looking good.” – Alan Cohen
6. “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” – Albert Schweitzer
7. “To be nobody but myself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me somebody else-means to fight the hardest battle any human can fight, and never stop fighting.” – E. E. Cummings
8. “To find yourself, think for yourself.” – Socrates
9. “What if the question is not why I am so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?” – Oriah Mountain Dreamer
10. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
11. “Don’t cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you’ve got.” – Steven Pressfield
12. “Think… of the world you carry within you.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
13. “There’s a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside.” – Pearl Bailey
14. “The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” – Anna Quindlen
15. “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” – Rumi
16. “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.” – Douglas Adams
17. “Don’t look for someone in whom to believe. Believe in yourself. The only authentic authority is your own original nature.” – Vernon Howard
18. “Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven, but not those who lack the courage of their own greatness.” – Ayn Rand
19. “Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.” – Richard Bach
20. “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.” – Maya Angelou
13 Questions
1. Pick three values you want to embody in 2013.
2. Pick three adjectives you want to use to describe your 2013.
3. It’s 365 days from now and you’re looking back. Finish this sentence: “2013 was the year I…”
4. Think of something you found challenging in 2012. This might be a habit, a pattern, or an activity. What can you do to prepare yourself better for this thing in 2013 and make it less challenging?
5. What would you tell the you who existed at the beginning of 2012 about the year ahead? Is there a lesson you can carry forward this year?
Finish the following sentences with as many answers as you want.
6. This year, I want my lifestyle to be…
7. This year, I want my relationships to be…
8. This year, I want my work to be…
9. This year, I want to feel…
10. This year, I want to start…
11. This year, I want to stop…
12. A belief about myself I want to strengthen this year is…
13. My bucket list of 5 things I want to experience by the end of 2013 includes…
Do you have any of your own meaningful quotes or questions? Share them in the comments below!
