Each new year brings a renewed enthusiasm to make this year–the absolute best year ever.
Goal-setting methods, books, and planners abound. Choose a guru, write down your goals, get an accountability partner, and you’re off to the races.
But if you’re not watchful, this can lead to high-speed hydroplaning over the surfaces of our lives driven by unbridled productivity.
Instead of being more efficient, we need to confess to how out of balance our daily routines have become.
At first glance, our problem might seem to be our lack of organization or will power. We might believe it’s our packed out schedules.
I think the problem runs deeper.
Most of us go through much of our lives oblivious to the divine presence in whom we live, move, and have our being. Unaware of this presence, which is our origin and our fulfillment, is with us as we journey through each day.
Perhaps instead of fast-forwarding into this year with a self-designed plan for happiness, we should hit the pause and rewind buttons.
Ignatius of Loyola, the sixteenth-century monk, encouraged his followers to make time each day to prayerfully be aware of how we have responded to this presence.
He called this prayer–the examination of consciousness, or for short, the examen. When consistently practice this simple 15-minute prayer can lead to a profound, inner transformation of consciousness.
I invite you to step aside from our culture’s drivenness and compulsive overachieving to once again let go and reflect upon the divine presence in our lives.
That’s what I’ll be doing at a contemplative prayer and planning retreat this weekend. I love to have you share the journey with me some time and hear about your experience.
PS–I’m creating a workbook with the help of my mentorees called What is, Next?–Setting Goals–An Ignatian Way. Stay tuned for more information regarding the workbook and possible webinar.
