It’s New Year’s Eve.

It’s a time of year where we reflect on what has passed and plan our ‘want to’ list for the year ahead...a time for consciously or unconsciously 'measuring up'.

It is said that during January is a good time for making plans. I will be doing that - quietly settling in and working on what small tweaks I can make in different areas of my life. It's too much pressure to start tomorrow! 

John has an approach to change where he goes all in... starts on the 1st of the month - or year - (or a Monday) and then after about 3 days, the habits he wants to lose creep back. (The golden ticket is apparently when 1st day of the year also falls on a Monday.) If only I'd known it was that easy, I could have saved myself all the skills and strategies I learnt in my Masters Degree in Change Agent Skills. I prefer a steadier considered approach. 
 

I know I have shared this quote before but at a time of year where we can feel pressured to measure up, I thought it might be useful to be reminded.

When the actor Ralph Fiennes was asked on what it felt like to have success, I think it was just after his Oscar nomination for the English Patient, this was his reply.

"The people I consider successful are so because of how they handle their responsibilities to other people, how they approach the future, people who have a full sense of the value of their life and what they want to do with it.

I call people successful not because they have money or their business is doing well but because, as human beings, they have a fully developed sense of being alive and engaged in a lifetime task of collaboration with other human beings -- their mothers and fathers, their family, their friends, their loved ones, the friends who are dying, the friends who are being born.

Success.. is all about being able to extend love to people... not in a big, capital letter sense but in the everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word."

I like this definition. It feels more relevant after this year than ever.  

Thank you for staying with me, writing to me and making my recipes. I really couldn’t do it without you - and I wouldn't want to.

Happy New Year and I hope it’s wonderful for you.

Deliciously yours,

Deborah