Winter solstice begins today in the Northern Hemisphere.
It’s the time of the year when the sun reaches its most southerly degree from the equator. Winter solstice marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year.
I love the Winter solstice. To me, it is real New Year’s Eve.
It’s the day every year where the universe calls us to rise out of the winter darkness into the daylight that a new spring is coming. It’s a unique chance to begin again.
What do winter solstice celebrations have to do with big dreams?
It’s a reminder that you can either begin a big dream journey or restart your big dream. You can choose to leave your limiting thoughts and self-sabotaging ways behind as the days grow long again. Soon, you will find yourself smiling at the spring flowers, enjoying the sounds of songbirds and the laughter of children as they play outdoors.
Each day is moving forward from today, the daylight increases by one minute.
What will you do with one minute more?
What if you spent just one minute each day focusing on what will improve your situation? What if you spend this time doing one small task that takes you closer to your big dream? I invite you to use this extra minute each day the winter solstice welcomes starting today to work on a dream.
Think of the momentum you’ll accrue if you choose to spend the extra minute of daylight to do something you love, take a risk, start something new, or just be kind to yourself for showing up.
In 30 days, you’ll be 30 minutes ahead of where you are now. Imagine one gift you can do each day for yourself–something small that stretches your lips into a smile so big that you breathe in joy.
Imagine if you practiced meditating over 30 days?
You’d be up to meditating 30 minutes in just one month! All you do is increase your practice by one minute each day. Just consider if you start a walking practice in the morning (or in the evening) and just increase it by one minute for 30 days–you’d be up to 30 minutes of daily walking in one month.
It’s the small steps pilled on top of each other that create significant change.
The problem is most people start a dream journey with the idea that you must walk or meditate for 30 minutes on your first day, instead of something small like walking for one minute the best you can. Then build on the one-minute achievement with small, incremental increases each day until you don’t realize you are doing something for yourself for 30 minutes each day.
Start with a winter solstice celebration or ritual today that exemplifies a beginning to your year of dreaming big.
Light some candles and take a quiet moment to make a list of all that you would like to happen in your life. Look at your dream list each night before you drift off to sleep. Or cut the items on your list into individual goals and wishes and place them in a beautiful jar with inspirational sayings and pull from it whenever you need inspiration in the coming year.
Challenge yourself every 30 days to investigate how you can make one of them come true. Keep in mind that most of the time you may not feel like doing anything, so just take one small step, like simply putting on walking shoes. If that’s all you can do, do be it. It’s a beginning. It’s change.
If you’d like to try some other fun solstice rituals to kick off your year of living your dream, see my article, 8 Solstice Rituals To Make Your Dreams Come True.
Make the next 12 months the year that you use one extra minute each day to make a dream come true.
Catherine Hughes
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Catherine Hughes is the founder, content director and editor-at-large of 8WomenDream. She is passionate about helping women step out of their own way and strike out into a world waiting for their special talents. She’s a published author and a former award-winning mom blogger. Catherine has helped companies both large and small create engaging web content, social media narratives, and unique blogging platforms. She claims to be a redhead, but don’t hold that against her.
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