A calendar measures the rhythm of our lives, and most of us perhaps can’t brush off a thought of impending big clock striking twelve at the end of December — a beginning of a New Year.
I don’t know about you, but New Year always excites me seemingly illuminating my entire mandala — my personal universe. It suffuses everything with optimism and hope that things will only get better onward.

At this time there are spontaneous passionate revisitations of our secret place where our dreams and inspirations dwell. We might be looking outside, exploring our horizon of imagination to stir up a plan of how to live a more exciting life fitting together into a larger stitched quilt of experiences and accomplishments.

Yet while the eyes are magnetized by the sparkle of things to come, it is good to reflect on what happened a year ago. Perhaps there was a moment similar to this — of powerful imagination, resolutions and quiet wishes for more happiness.

As we look back at the full circle of the year, there might be an impetus to single out only professional or creative achievements by which we habitually measure success of our lives.
But this time lets take time to celebrate our internal accomplishments.

For most of the time we look outside ourselves for verification of results to justify all the pressures and stresses endured during the year, whether we have plenty or not. But this time, lets look at what we achieved internally, how much we evolved to be happier with our lives.

• You Live More Authentically. That is stopping telling lies to yourself and siphoning resources of time and energy to live up to projections of others. It shows up distinctly as being more comfortable with yourself, your choices and preferences of having freedom of natural unique self-expression.

• You’ve Become Able To Recognize and Reduce Negative Emotions. This alone indicates a significant increase in the quality of life. Understanding their causes and reducing negative emotions of Anger, Regret, Guilt, Blame, Worry and Resentment is a big immaterial accomplishment.

• You’ve Become More Tolerant. The world around us is not black and white. There are as many opinions and preferences as there are people. Holding onto own opinion gently and gracefully allows for you and those around you to have less stress.

• You’ve Become Kinder. Lets face it nothing ever comes perfect at once, there is a learning curve to most of our undertakings, and relationships. Sometimes we need to change our habits and it may not happen quickly or easy. Becoming kind to ourselves when we less than perfect, we tend to be kinder to others. By becoming kinder we remove resistance and our world becomes lighter and flexible.

• You’ve Become Happier. Even little understanding that true happiness is not caused by external conditions alone, but results from the quality and direction of one’s thinking is a major accomplishment to celebrate.

Now find at least one or two extra inner accomplishments on your own. Recognize and celebrate them because this is more important than anything — it is what gives your life a particular quality and a taste, and by doing so you will increase it.