How To Let Go Of The Past Year?

Another year has passed by and a dewy-fresh, new one is knocking at the door!

But there may be many people out there for whom the countdown to the New Year is filled with melancholy and despondency. While others around them indulge in the New Year’s celebrations, replete with cheer, promises, and of course resolutions, these people whip out their growth calculator and start analyzing all that they could NOT do in the year that has slipped by and wallow in self-pity or self-chastising.

For these people, it is essential to learn the art of ‘letting go’, so that they can step into the New Year with a positive and cheerful mind.

Table of Contents

Here are 4 things that you can do to let go of the year gone by.

#1 Acceptance

This is a must before moving into the next year. First and foremost, accept that it is okay to feel upset about not accomplishing the tasks that you had set for yourself this year. You are a human being, after all. You are meant to feel dejected and a plethora of other things when you had hoped to succeed but didn’t. Tell yourself that you did your best and the rest of it is with the Almighty. Even if you couldn’t or didn’t do your best, you are still on the right path as you feel responsible enough to own up to your failure. But don’t take the next step of berating yourself for it. Instead, take a right turn and fill yourself with acceptance. But how? This takes us to the next step.

#2 Gratitude

Acceptance follows gratitude. A heart that is full of gratitude finds it easier to accept whatever life throws at it. And the simplest way to develop gratitude is to open one’s eyes to the miracles of this world. Look at your own body. It is a miracle in itself; the way it operates on its own, breathes on its own, heals on its own. Feeling grateful for a body that’s so alive is the first step towards feeling grateful for everything else in our lives. Develop a small ritual wherein you pay your gratitude to this universe on a daily basis.

#3 Write a letter to yourself

Instead of jotting down a list of New Year resolutions, write a letter to your ‘self’, talking about all that you did and did not do in the past year. Write as if you are writing to your most ardent well-wisher (which you actually are), who would want to know how your year was. Be honest in your writing; be compassionate too. Arrange to receive it on the New Year day so that you get to read it from the perspective of a new ‘you’.

#4 Set your intentions for the next year

It is always a good idea to set intentions for the upcoming year which align with your life’s purpose than setting yourself unattainable goals. You might want to see yourself look like one of those eternally fit and well proportionate people around you. But what is the way to achieve that? Not fad diets but a shift in perspective. A holistically thinking mind will guide you to practices which will take care of your overall wellness.