A New Year and New Hope
By Steve Gahagen
Every year, I feel like the Christmas Season speeds by and, before you know it, all the Advent candles have been lit. Christmas is behind us and a new year before us. Store aisles shift from the excess of Christmas to weight loss products and storage bins. Even with all the COVID Christmas cancellations, the season seemed to slip away like the mist of an early morning.
Our celebration of a new year is intriguing. We see widespread optimism and celebration all across the globe. The party-like atmosphere in New York’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve is repeated in cities and towns worldwide. People dance, sing and enjoy parades in the streets (not so much this year).
Why are we wildly optimistic at the beginning of a new year? Why do people celebrate when calamity could find us as easily as blessing? Would we have welcomed 2020 so warmly had we known what was in store?
Deep down within we long for new beginnings, new possibilities, and new stories. We hope for something more and something better.
Leveraging our strengths provides us the internal wealth to bring hope to life by attempting new things, writing new stories, building new relationships and strengthening our teams or families in new ways. Our strengths provide us a never-ending source to see life become.
Questions to Consider
How have you leveraged your strengths to overcome obstacles?
How might the challenges of 2020 set the stage for you to write a new story that you wouldn’t have written otherwise?
What new objectives would you like to accomplish and how could you leverage your strengths to meet them?