What Energy Are You NOT Bringing Into 2023? (And Other Questions About Your Future History)
Issue 217 — January 9, 2023
Last week, I quoted Alicia Keys who asked the great question on social media:
“What energy are u bringing into this year?”
What was your answer?
If you didn’t answer it last week, you’re not too late — drop your thoughts into the comments. I really want to know. I think it’s a worthwhile discussion for each of us to have with ourselves and trusted colleagues.
OK, I’ll share what I replied to Alicia’s question even though it was directed to the whole universe and not me in particular:
“Big thinking. Big actions. No playing small.”
I explained that since the worst had already happened to me in July, 2022, when my husband died, I enter the new year with a fearlessness I have never experienced. What do I have to lose that could even start to rival that loss? I might as well go for broke.
In concrete terms, that means “Intentioning” at my highest vibration to scale Take The Lead.
It means raising millions of dollars so we can deliver 25 cohorts of our powerful and proven 50 Women Can Change the World program, license the 9 Leadership Power Tools online course to 10 companies and launch a new live course based on the 9 Leadership Intentioning Tools, stake out a goal of 1000 in-person participants in the 2023 Power Up Concert and Conference, serve many organizations with Women’s History Month speeches because that’s one of my favorite things to do.
It means we are truly committed to achieve our mission of intersectional leadership parity by 2025.
This week, let’s answer the correlated question: what energy are we NOT bringing into 2023?
Because it’s as important to acknowledge what we will release and say “goodbye” to, or say “no” to, as it is to say what energy we are affirmatively bringing into the new year.
I found this harder to answer beyond saying that it would be the opposite of the big thinking and acting that represents the energy I will bring into the year.
How do I define what I will release or say no to? I have a difficult time saying “no” to people and to what might seem like opportunities but also divert energy away from the things I have declared the most important for the year.
But I do know that I will release fear of failure and negative talk from nay-sayers (including myself). This means asking where I’ve never asked before, asking for what we need not what we can eke out a barebones program with.
It means saying “no” to the next shiny object that can drain energy away from what I am committed to focus on. This is super hard for me. It means having more discipline and releasing the tendency to procrastinate.
Back in the olden days of January, 2022, I told this story about a dream I had many years ago when my children were young and I knew it was time for that marriage to end but was afraid to release it:
I was driving fast down a winding, unlit, red dirt West Texas road. I couldn’t see through the dust storm. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t get off of the road because there were no exits, no crossroads.
It was like the car was driving me rather than the other way around. I kept hurtling down that uncharted road, driving fast into whatever came next.
Do you ever feel your life is like that?
If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s that we are all driving, often thinking we’re in control of our vehicle, but in truth having few clues as to what we’ll find around the bend.
There will always be surprises ahead.
There will be unexpected setbacks, disasters, twists and turns that sap my natural optimism and make me want to just stop the damn car and take a nap. This is the nature of life.
Funnily, in my dream — since it was a dream — I didn’t realize that I could have turned the car around and gone in a different direction. You can probably think of other options to take back my power — to set the course rather than have it set for me, or perhaps to have found a way to use the energy of the runaway car to propel me forward to my intentions.
To be sure, there are economic, social, and political trends that influence our ability to create the future exactly as we might want it to roll out. We’ll be challenged. We’ll trip up. We’ll have health or family issues we can’t control. We are living in a time when the opportunities to make life better with technologies are expanding exponentially, even as the problems of climate change and global instability threaten to put an end to life as we know it. Still, the choices are always ultimately ours.
Just remember: whatever your history, wherever the story of your life started, you get to decide how your story ends. You get to choose what energy you bring forward and what you release. You can use the energy, the power of your intention, to create the future of your choice.
I promise to bring my energy forward for Take The Lead to help you do that.
GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker and expert women’s leadership developer for companies that want to build gender balance, and a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50 2022, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Tweet Gloria Feldt.