Each year in December I create my 3 Wishes for the following year. This ritual is my chance to reflect on the year ending: its quintessential flavour, its high and also its low moments. And then, as the New Year approaches, I look forwards and create my 3 Wishes for the next year.
I write these 3 Wishes in my journal and these become my personal vision, guiding my choices and actions for that year. The following December I review these, what worked, what didn’t…and why… and then, once again, I create the next year’s vision with my 3 Wishes and subsequent actions to secure them. Over the years, as I moved into the rhythm of this ritual, my wishes grew into an incremental visioning and evolved into ultimately finding my purpose, as well as continuing to take me on the most unexpected and magical adventures!
This year, as with so many things, I am doing this ritual differently. My son, Louis Lunts, and I are sharing our reflections of 2021 and our respective 3 Wishes for 2022 in a video discussion. Louis is a Business Director at a leading advertising agency, and he has also been integral to Cascãd since its inception in 2003, including writing some of our Perspectives Posts. In September, Louis wrote about our experience of 48 hours in a COVID-19 ward, tending to my mother as she passed away.
As with so many, this pandemic has hit us very personally on various levels and it was for this reason I wanted to reflect on the highs and lows of 2021 with Louis, as well as explore our wishes for 2022.
You will see on the video that Louis shares my innate gift of authentic positivity. We were supposed to be filming this video in Paris, with a beautiful montage of that exquisite city in the backdrop, but life…in the form of COVID-19 again… had other plans about travel onto mainland Europe and so we decided to reroute to Brighton. As a very dear friend said to me recently: ‘Sometimes things work out, not how we wanted them to be, but how they should be. And often this can bring magical and unexpected results.’
This is the framework for creating your 3 Wishes for 2022:
1. Reflect on 2021:
· What was the overall flavour/tone of 2021?
· What were your high and also your low moments?
· What are you most proud of about how you responded to this year?
· Any regrets?
2. Now think about 2022:
· What’s the overall flavour/tone you really want for 2022? Write a word/phrase.
· Find/create a visual to capture this.
· Now create your 3 Wishes for 2022 and the actions that will best ensure they happen.
If you create wishes that are too easy, then you will probably secure them, but you might be settling for just good enough. If you are aiming for something greater then be bold and hungry: feeling shy about your wishes is the best indicator that you are on the right track! And these wishes are not exclusively focused on material outcomes. They include physical, emotional and psychological well-being, flowing from that fundamental question: ‘What will make your heart sing?’
So, at the end of another challenging but also extraordinary year, I wish you all a very happy festive season and a 2022 rich with great love, sparkling light… and very magical adventures!
Hannah Elizabeth Greenwood