Turning New Year’s Wishes into Reality: A Practical Guide
Turning New Year’s Wishes into Reality: A Practical Guide
As the New Year approaches, many of us hold onto the magical belief that our wishes will come true if we make them on New Year’s Eve. There’s something mystically enchanting about the night of December 31st. A traditional ritual involves writing down your wish, burning the paper, and drinking the ashes with champagne at midnight. However, for many, this method seems archaic, and its effectiveness is often questioned.
Understanding Your True Desires
Psychologist Olga Anyshkina and writer Anna Chizh-Litazhovik share their insights on how to turn New Year’s wishes into reality. According to Olga Anyshkina, a psychologist and family therapist, the New Year is a perfect time to reflect on the past year, understand what worked, what needs more effort, and what has lost its relevance. It’s a time to forgive, be grateful for fulfilled dreams, and acknowledge your achievements and victories.
The New Year’s Eve is a special time for romance and miracles. Each of us becomes a bit like a child, believing in magic. As children, we made wishes and waited for gifts under the tree. Some were luckier than others, as some had family members who could fully or partially fulfill the role of Santa Claus.
Since then, we’ve believed that performing the right ritual can change our lives, making them brighter and more aligned with our desires. However, Olga Anyshkina advises not to wait for a New Year’s miracle without understanding your true needs and desires.
Steps to Make Your New Year’s Wish Come True
To make your New Year’s wish come true, you need to put in personal effort. Your wish grows from a need. For example, the need for closeness. Someone might wish for a close person with shared interests. The typical ritual involves writing the wish on paper, burning it, putting the ashes in a champagne glass, and drinking it at midnight.
The ritual itself is simple. The challenge lies in identifying your true needs. How can you understand what you really want? Which desires are truly yours, and which are imposed by others? Is this really what you want?
Olga suggests a self-reflection exercise before the New Year. Find a quiet place, take a pen and paper, and answer the following questions: Who are you? What is your purpose? What are you interested in? What are you curious about? What do you want right now? What do you want in the New Year? What would you like to change in your life? What is preventing you from making these changes?
At any given moment, a person can have multiple desires. But only one need and one desire will be the strongest, the one you truly want. Write a list of your desires and rank them by emotional intensity from 1 to 10. Choose the strongest desire and ask yourself: What am I willing to do to make it come true in the New Year? Write down specific actions that come to mind. Pay attention to your feelings. If your state improves, and you feel excited and motivated to act, you’re on the right path. You can apply the same approach to other desires.
Instructions from a Psychologist
To make your New Year’s wish come true, follow these steps:
- Clearly define your need or true desire.
- Write a step-by-step action plan to achieve your goal. Plan for a month or two ahead. This will give you a clear guide and reduce the likelihood of impulsive actions and uncertainty. Your actions should be realistic, specific, measurable, and controllable.
- Determine the level of energy and the nature of emotions that arise when thinking about your actions. If your energy drops and negative emotions arise, adjust your wish to better suit you (your energy level should increase, and emotions should be positive).
- Start taking specific actions. To begin, use the metaphor of “eating an elephant one bite at a time.” Break down the action into smaller subtasks. Focus on one small task at a time. Each day, work on a specific subtask. Set a deadline for each action and track your progress, noting any difficulties or ease.
Remember, for your New Year’s wish to come true, it must align with your true need, not one imposed by parents or society. You can hope for higher powers or others, but the New Year’s miracle won’t happen unless you take concrete steps towards change. The key is to keep moving forward and actively work on improving your life daily.
Personal Pre-New Year Rituals
Writer and journalist Anna Chizh-Litazhovik shares her personal rituals. For her, the New Year is a wonderful occasion to sum up personal results. It’s both a finish and a start. A few days before the holiday, she sits down with a white sheet of paper and a pen, listing all her achievements for the year. This is a great way to get rid of the “imposter syndrome.” Seeing a list of fifty accomplishments makes all doubts disappear, filling her with pride.
Anna tried the popular method of writing wishes on paper, burning it, and drinking the ashes with champagne at midnight. However, her wishes didn’t come true. She realized that the magic doesn’t lie in the chimes or the ashes but within ourselves. Wishes come true thanks to our efforts and abilities.
Every January 1st, Anna takes a white sheet of paper and writes new goals for the coming year, not wishes. She formulates her goals using the SMART method: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This method turns the most fantastic goals into objective and realistic ones. She keeps this sheet and thanks herself every time a goal is achieved, believing in her strength.
Before the New Year, Anna has another ritual: she writes and calls people who are dear to her, not just relatives and friends, but also strangers who have changed her life with their actions or words. She expresses her gratitude and acknowledges their importance.
Despite her rationality, Anna believes in the miracles of New Year’s Eve. She listens to the clock’s ticking and wishes for mutual, boundless, pure love, which every woman deserves.
For more insights on setting and achieving goals, you can refer to Mind Tools, a comprehensive resource for personal and professional development.
