Planning Your Best Year Ever

I hope you had a Blessed Yule on Friday. Now that the Sun has been reborn, the days will again start to get longer. Even after 30 years of paying attention, I’m still amazed at how quickly you can see the difference.

By Imbolc, there will be a very noticeable change in how early the Sun rises, and how much later it sets. It’s extraordinary, considering it’s just over a month away.

Now is the time to start planning what you want to harvest this year (or in the coming years, if you are planning long-term), if you haven’t already. Remember, we took the beginning of Winter off, to rest. While it’s still too early to plant seeds, it is a good time to plan what seeds you want to plant for the year.

These are not actual seeds, I want to make that clear. These are metaphorical, or even metaphysical seeds. These are the ideas you want to manifest by the Fall. We use the metaphor of seasons, planting, and harvesting, because they are easy for anyone to understand.

First, you plan what seeds you will plant. Later, at Imbolc, we will plant those seeds. We will tend them through the Summer, and by Fall, they should be heavy with the fruit of our labors, ready to harvest. As I pointed out above, this will work for manifestations that can take several years as well. It just takes some slight modifications.

You may have realized already, this is where the concept of New Years Resolutions came from. What is a Resolution, but a plan to manifest change in your life? The reason most New Year’s Resolutions are quickly forgotten, is because the Resolution is made in a vacuum. It’s easy to say, “I will do…” but you soon realize it will take work that you never prepared for.

This is why we are planning what seeds to plant now. What is it that you want to manifest for the coming year? What is it that will make you happiest? What will change your life for the best? What is it, that you really want?

Preparation is everything.

If you remember, back in November, we started internal reflection, to figure out who you are, and what you really want out of life. Only after you truly know yourself, are you able to truly know what will make you happiest. That’s why most people aren’t happy. They chase after the shiny thing that seems will make them happy for now.

Knowing yourself well enough to know what will actually make you happy, knowing what you really want out of life, is what Alistair Crowley called, your True Will. Following your True Will, is what leads to success in all things, according to Crowley. If you’ve been following along since the beginning, you’ve now had almost two months to find your True Will.

Now we plan how to manifest what you truly want. Think BIG! There’s no point in spending all the time and effort we’re going to, on the small stuff. A Witch understands that he or she is capable of anything, given the focus, and time to work. I don’t care how big, or impossible your desire seems right now, if it is what you truly desire, make it the seed you will plant.

Now that you know what the culmination of the spell will be, it’s time to look at how to get there. Unlike what we see on TV and in the movies, magick isn’t a ‘Set and Forget’ option. You know where you are now, and you’ve decided where it is that you want to be. You can visualize with amazing clarity what your life will be like, once you achieve your goal.

Remember, the clearer you can see your life already manifested, the clearer your Intent is. Clear Intent is fully half of Spell Craft. If your visualization is fuzzy, or missing details, you will never be able to manifest anything life changing. You must have clarity. If you don’t, continue refining the image until you do, or change your focus to an outcome that is perfectly clear.

So, we now have a crystal-clear objective. We also know where we stand right now. The question you will be spending the next month on, is how do you get from where you are, to where you want to be? What? You thought this was going to be easy?

If it were easy, everyone would have perfect lives.

Over the next month or so, between now and Imbolc, you must figure out the steps that will get you from where your life is now, to where you want it to be. Yes, that sounds daunting at best, impossible at worst, but this is what it means to be a Witch. This is that Path everyone talks about you walking. Now you begin to understand why you are the only one who can walk it.

Think about the life you want to manifest, or an important part of that life that you will manifest in the coming year. What must you do, in order to get that life? Unless you’ve already thought a great deal about it, your mind will be blank. Your mind could remain blank for quite some time. This is a way of thinking, and problem solving, that they no longer teach in school.

A hundred year ago, schools taught problem solving and leadership. Unless your parents had the money to send you to a private school, the only thing you learned in school, was how to be a cog in machine of society. Witches are not cogs. We are leaders, we take responsibility for ourselves.

That is what we are doing here. We are taking the responsibility for making our lives what we choose to make them. It takes time to relearn how to think. That is why your mind will most likely be blank, when you start thinking about the steps you need to take, to change your life into what you want it to be.

Don’t worry if you can’t find any steps as you think. By taking time to actively think about how to get where you want to be, you will find that ideas will occur to you when you least expect them. By spending time thinking on what steps you’ll need to take, you are priming your mind to pay attention to things that will help you get where you want to go.

You will find that even if you come up with steps while actively thinking about it, there will be times when an idea suddenly appears out of nowhere. The more time you spend on working out the steps you need to take, the more these ideas will come to you. You are making this goal a priority in your mind, and it will continue to work on the goal subconsciously, even when you are consciously thinking about other things, like work, or bills, or anything else.

It is important that you spend time working toward your goal.

Whatever it is that you want to manifest in your life, you must spend time on a regular basis, thinking on it, and how to get there. Thinking about it once, will get no results. You must do this as often as you can. You don’t need to spend a lot of time thinking about it, but you must spend some time every day, or every couple of days. Even a couple of minutes a day, will get you results.

By the time Imbolc comes, you should have at least the major, the really BIG steps you need to take, worked out. You don’t have to have all the little steps, but you should have a good idea of what you will need to do, to manifest the change. Some steps will be easy. You won’t even have to think how to take them. Other steps, will be hard. It’s never easy to change habits, especially those that are keeping you from your happiness. You will have to change how you think about your life. That is one of the hardest things you will ever do.

Spend the time between now, and Imbolc, thinking about how you will go from where you are, to where you want to be. Write down the steps as they occur to you. Keep the list where you can get to it easily. By writing the steps down, you are committing to do them. You are making them concrete. If other, more manageable steps appear to you, replace what you have in the list, with the easier steps.

You will find that as you spend time thinking about what you’ll need to do, it will get easier. You are starting the think like a Witch. You will also find other benefits come to you, as you work on this problem. What those benefits are, will vary depending on your circumstance. Witchcraft isn’t the easy Path. It is however, the Path that can get you to your heart’s desire.

Feel free to tell me what you think below. If you are going to follow a schedule for when you will spend time working on steps, post it so others can look at it, and maybe use it. Let me know the successes and the problems you encounter.