I’ve tried New Year’s resolutions in the past, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never ever completed or succeeded at a single one. Not that I have a fear of commitment… I just can’t maintain the va-va-va-voom required to stick with something that quite frankly is something I’m a wee bit resistant to in the first place, otherwise I’d just do it, and not call it a resolution! Usually resolutions are “I shoulds”, not “I want from the deepest depths of my soul” and I’m not much good at doing something I really don’t want to do.

So last year I did something different. I said to hell with resolutions, and decided to commit an ENTIRE YEAR to ONE SINGLE WORD. I spent some time prior to the start of 2014, distilling down my number one internal negative-self-talk garbage, and then I set out to view my life’s experiences through that one-word word.

Last year, my word was “VALUE”. I’ve long had this warped correlation in my mind between personal worth and financial worth. To put it simply... the amount of money you have determines your value as a human. Though I know in my mind that this correlation is totally nuts and doesn’t make any sense, it’s something I’ve struggled with.

It holds me back and makes me play small.

Try starting a biz and charging money for your services when you don’t believe you’re worth it… or even worse, you don’t believe you deserve it.

It. Sucks.

I know I’m good at what I do. I receive the best testimonials, like this one…

I always felt like Stasia had my back and wanted what was best for me. Plus, she’s seriously funny. AND she knows her stuff! I had NO idea getting dressed had so many puzzle pieces… I thought there was something wrong with me!! But Stasia showed me it just takes a little know how and suddenly you look and feel pulled together and confident. I also didn’t realize how much of myself was being lost by not matching my outside to my inside. That inside-out congruency is NO JOKE! I look WAY more pulled together and I’m using stuff from my own closet! I haven’t spent much money, yet I FEEL like a million bucks!? Tami H.

And the pictures!! My clients send me THE BEST most brilliant smiling-from-ear-to-ear pictures of themselves, wearing outfits that suit their soul so perfectly it makes my heart sing and my cheeks red hot with pride and joy.

It’s funny how the universe works.

When I set my word, I thought I was setting myself up to be the recipient of all sorts of VALUE. I was thinking that cash would swarm me like a sky full of cicadas.

Ironically, 2014 was the craziest most bas-akward year for me financially. EVERYTHING went wrong. Roof. Cars. Lawnmower. Dishwasher. Snowblower. You name it. It broke.

Or… maybe it wasn’t ironic at all. Maybe I just needed a money lesson so big that it would really and truly shake the wonky foundation of my money/value belief system. Apparently I’m not a quick study, so it took something HUGE for me to WAKE UP and smell the damn coffee. And that’s exactly what happened.

I spent the ENTIRE year looking at all of my “bad money luck” experiences through my VALUE lens. Not as easy as it sounds… because first I would scream, then cry, then laugh out of exasperation, then perseverate on my bad luck… THEN I would settle down and look at what was happening through the VALUE lens.

And here is was I learned:

when you pay for a service, you are not only paying for someone’s skill, but you are paying for their honesty and integrity, and the goodness in their heart.
once you get on a we-have-bad-luck-negative-nelly-train-to-hell, your prophecy will be fulfilled, over and over again.
I held myself back tremendously.
despite my “bad luck” and plummeting bank account, kindness and generosity poured into my life… so much so, that my eyes would wiggle inside my head because I couldn’t believe all of the human goodness I was experiencing.

Broke. But valued. WHOA.

I finally got it. But only because I was paying attention.

So this year, I’ve got a new word. BRAVE.

My first time with RED NAILS. Starting the new year with some COURAGE, baby!

In the past several weeks, I’ve come to realize that I have two brands of brave.

I-KNOW-I-CAN-BUT-PRETEND-I-CAN’T BRAVE Sometimes I KNOW I can do something, but for some reason, I shroud it with negative, “I can’t do that / no-way jose” self-talk, even though I know deep inside that it’ll be okay. It’s like I’m afraid of my own bravert, so I hide it behind negativity and pessimism. Good God. Why in hell do I do that? I need to stop it.

I’M-TOO-DAMN-SCARED-AND-I-WON’T BRAVE But then there are times when I am afraid of doing something because I’m afraid I might fail and/or somebody might laugh at me and/or people will judge me. So I don’t do it at all, and I come up with every excuse in the book to NOT do it.

I want to look at my life’s experiences in 2015 through the lens of BRAVE, and see what comes up. I want to recognize my patterns and bad habits and practice new ways of thinking about things. When I feel like a chicken, I want to let out a big slobbering can’t-breathe gasp, then do it anyway. And if I can’t do it in the moment, I want to understand why.

It’s a year long cumulative task in being a good brave courageous human. And I’m ready!

We all have shiz we can work on… and I’m choosing to work on something that I know is holding me back. Except, it’s almost like it’s not work, because my brain is thinking all the time anyway. I’m just giving it a filter to think through.

I want to encourage you to choose ONE WORD that will act as your life experience filter. A lens you can look through as you journey through 2015. What’s holding you back? What are you afraid of? How are you sabotaging yourself? What are you lacking? CHOOSE THAT.

With Love… and BRAVERY, Stasia