Starting Here. Starting Now.

New Year, Same Assignment

The period between Christmas and New Year’s Day is the time when a lot of us start thinking about where we want to be this time next year. We pull out the journals and vision boards from the previous December and take what is often a little too hard a look at how well we did (or didn’t).

We grade ourselves in absolutes instead of gradients. Anything left undone last year goes to the top of our list for the new year, and we “resolve” to do better.

That’s not much of a reset.

In December 2019, after years of vision boards, affirmations, and “manifestation frustration” (my term for the mixed and messy results that often ensued), a day of prayer and reflection led to a revelation — and a one-word resolution: ALIGNMENT.

“My resolution for 2020 is to be in alignment with who God created me to be because, once I am in alignment with my true spiritual self, I will naturally want to do, be, and have the things God wants for me — which will make it all achievable.”

Easy to write. Not so easy to do. Still, it started me down a path that continues to change my life for the better.

Now, I approach this season differently. As I sit here at the end of another year, before I think about what’s next, I take time to be present enough to really look at where I am now, compared to where I started. I may not have checked off everything I thought I would by this point, but there are things I can see clearly — unexpected wins, quiet progress, growth, and healing that didn’t look the way I imagined it would, but still showed up for me in powerful ways.

I can say that in many ways, I’m in a better place than where I began.

I’ve learned that vision doesn’t always arrive as a clear picture of the future. Sometimes it shows up as a quiet sense of direction. Sometimes it’s just an awareness that something is taking shape beneath the surface — a hint that God is up to something inside of me.

Vision is about seeing who and what I AM in God’s eyes and believing it.

That is how InVision Align Manifest became my modus operandi when starting — not just the new year, but any new project or season in my life.

InVision isn’t about imagining a future version of myself. It’s about recognizing what God has already placed within me, even when it isn’t fully visible yet.

Align is where the work becomes real. It’s where habits, posture, and daily choices stop contradicting the vision. Alignment doesn’t replace God; it prepares the space for God to work.

Manifest isn’t something we “do” or make happen. Manifestation is the natural result. It’s how God’s vision and version of us flows into real life when vision and alignment meet.

I’m starting this year the same way I’ve learned to start everything now — from right where I AM with gratitude and confidence in God’s vision of me, commitment to the practices necessary to show up as that version of me, and faith and patience in the process.