GAELYNN LEA'S
NEW YEAR NEWSLETTER
Wishing You a Magical 2020!
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Greetings!
HAPPY NEW YEAR, FRIEND! I hope you had a fun and restful holiday season and that you're heading into 2020 bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! Paul and I are setting out today for a conference in New Orleans after a glorious month at home in Duluth, Minnesota - but before we do, I just wanted to fill you in on recent happenings and let you know what is coming up next! Let me know how your December went and if you have any plans, thoughts or advice leading into 2020... I'd love to hear from you! Stay warm and take good care of yourself this winter.
Love,
Gaelynn Lea
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Home for the Holidays in Minne-snow-ta!
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Even though it went impossibly fast, Paul and I had a great time at home this past month. We were home for exactly 30 days and since it seemed to snow for 29 of those days, we spent a lot of time at our apartment with our little dog Clara - reading books, listening to music, cooking and (my new favorite hobby) feeding the local squirrels... There's one squirrel in particular who has started checking in on us with surprising regularity. We have named him Gumdrop and he and Clara are mutually curious about each other:
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Aside from resting at home and feeding the forest rodents, Paul and I spent many lovely evenings at my parents' house, hanging out with our friends and enjoying the most wonderful of all Duluth's winter sightseeing activities -
Bentleyville
! I also played two really fun holidays shows... I jammed with my friends at Wussow's Concert Cafe in Duluth, and I got to open for The Jayhawks in St Paul!
One of my favorite moments of this "stay-cation" was when I spent the afternoon painting with my nephew Calvin, age 5, while the adult humans watched football... It was just so dang fun watching him create stuff!
In addition to relaxing, I also got caught up on emails, booked some new shows, renewed my health care and applied for a grant that would (fingers crossed!) allow me to take some serious time off to write that book I keep mentioning! If you don't know about my book project or if you care to support it upfront (and reserve your copy!), you can check out this video here:
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Support my work with a monthly donation through Patreon:
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20/20 Vision
(Pun Intended.)
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As you can probably tell by now, I've never
not
pretended to be a huge geek about personal development. My love of growth and change and self-help is most apparent at the New Year... So a new DECADE is like a PARTY for me!
I should start by saying that I truly believe all of us are inherently valuable and that we each deserve an enriching life filled with love and compassion... Nonetheless, I thrive on developing my skills and learning and evolving, like a swimmer likes to swim or a gamer likes to game or like a chef likes to cook. So a few days ago I gleefully created two different vision boards - one for 2020 and one for my long-term vision:
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The 2020 Goals were based on a concept called a "Battle Board" by speaker and coach
Brendon Burchard
. Although I don't personally jive with the name so much (life is more magical than a battle to me), I had a lot of fun planning out my year month-by-month and putting it somewhere very visible to remind myself of my goals (on my physical desktop and on my computer desktop) - it's easier to keep perspective this way.
For example, I really want to write a first draft of my book this year, but it was stressing me out because I felt it hanging over my head at every moment as I was busy doing other things. Well, now I have it slotted for May-August... So I can breathe easy knowing I'll get to it eventually - and (just as importantly) I can say "no" to unrelated activities without guilt this summer to keep this commitment. If you never make a plan for yourself, life will fill in the blanks for you!
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Watch Brendon Burchard's Video on "Battle Boards" Here:
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Some of you might be thinking right now - "Well, what if life DOES have other plans? What if I get sick or injured or some other yet-unknown event derails my yearly goals?" Friend, I hear you! If having Brittle Bones Disease has taught me anything, it's that life as we know it is impermanent. I have experienced drastic changes to my trajectory due to health issues and accidents more times than I care to remember. In fact, there was a year or so when I hesitated to set ANY goals because it seemed like a future goal was the trigger to break a limb.
But here's what I have discovered, in retrospect: goals can change all the time! It's having the goal that can motivate your daily actions and keep you reaching just a little further than you were before. But
not
having goals can leave you feeling aimless and unchallenged.
Plus here's another thing: sometimes goals aren't the main motivator for me. Often it's my long-term vision that keeps me going. That's why I made a second vision board to reflect my long-term goals in all areas of my life. In a book I'm reading called "
High Performance Habits
" (also by Brendon Burchard) it suggests mapping out your vision for all areas of your life: Health, Family, Friends, Intimate Relationship, Work, Finances, Hobby, Adventure, Spirituality and Emotion. It doesn't matter WHAT the goals are, it matters that you're viewing your life holistically and thinking about each area.
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Why am I writing about all this (aside from the fact that I totally LOVE this stuff)? Because I am hoping to inspire YOU to think of your OWN goals and long-term vision! Haha, and if you're about to gag or delete this newsletter forever because of all the enthusiasm oozing from your screen, then I encourage you to seek out whatever it is that inspires YOU!
We're all different and that's GOOD... You and I might think a lot differently about life, but I believe that ultimately, neither of us is wrong. Go find your own source of motivation, and if you can't think of it on your own, talk to a counselor or confide in a friend or read a book or an uplifting website to give you a boost (I personally love
The Golden Present
&
The Motivation Manifesto
).
Life is a drag when we forget that it's magical to be alive. So whatever it is that excites you and interests you - no matter how small or silly or obscure or fanciful - FOLLOW THAT THING! You deserve to feel joy and excitement and love and peace. So long as you're not intentionally injuring the lives around you, you should seek it out! Try something new, or get back to something you let slip away. Pick up that book or that pen or register for that dance class. Let wonder capture your imagination and let it guide you to the path that's right for you. I wish you the best in 2020, and I hope you find big and small ways to make it enriching and to enrich the lives of those around you. Cheers to 2020... and the next 10 years!
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I'll leave you with a video of my favorite midwinter tune, "In the Bleak Midwinter"... This video was taken during a very special show in Manchester, England by my good friend Bartek. The guitarist in the video is my dear friend, Dave Mehling, who just became a father this December... Congratulations to him and his lovely wife Melissa!
Well, that's all for now, but I'll be back with another newsletter in a month or two... Until then, enjoy the rest of January and please keep in touch. Love and light to you and yours this Winter!
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