2021 Reflections Stepping into our power and releasing what no longer serves us in 2022

2021 Reflections – Stepping into our power and releasing what no longer serves us in 2022.

by Alma Sheren, Greenacre Group

2022 is the year of the Water Tiger. Traditionally, the tiger represents energy, strength, protection, altruism, leadership, purposefulness, respect and revolutionary ideas. Some negative traits it also represents are vulnerability, sensitivity, selfishness, overestimation and an ‘all or nothing’ attitude.

As we look behind us one last time at 2021 and reflect on our experiences and personal journeys, there will be a sense of a releasing and letting go of the things that we feel no longer serve us as we move forward into the new shifts taking place. This could come in the form of releasing outdated attitudes, how we used to see ourselves and others, old habits, thought patterns and behaviours we have outgrown, and quite possibly if we’ve overdone it with the covid couch clinging, old clothes that no longer fit us. There will be more entrepreneurs, more people taking chances and being more creative in their career outlooks, and the potential for more abundance…not just the material kind.

Creating and maintaining a new balance

We have been observing over the past year The Great Resignation, a phenomenon that has seen masses of people all over the globe leaving their jobs to find pastures new that reflect their values, their emotional and mental health needs and their passions, and this is set to continue as we head through 2022. We’ve also seen the call by a growing number of thought leaders for a four-day week, as technology supersedes more and more of the traditional manual labour and administrative office jobs and there becomes a bigger demand for employees to be treated with more fairness and balance in order for everyone to bring their best selves to work and achieve greater collective success. Early studies show a four-day week actually increases revenue and creativity, whilst allowing employees to gain much needed refreshment and more time to focus on their own wellbeing, without the fear of reductions in their pay. Having peace of mind and positive mental health can be a game changer for creative output and innovation.

A driver for positive change

Whilst the pandemic has created much chaos, despair and destruction, it has also disrupted the status quo and driven through a lot of much needed change in the areas of employment, wellbeing, mental health, technological advances, and perhaps most importantly of all, what we value most. It’s not been an easy process and, as with anything new, there have been and will be mistakes made. But as long as we understand that its ok and healthy to get things wrong, in order to work towards getting things right, every challenge we face today can become tomorrow’s success story – individually, as a team, as an organisation, and as a wider collective.

There will be many more changes still as we head onwards through the next year and beyond, but one thing is certain. In order to make room for the new things heading towards us, we must release what no longer serves us. When we focus on our strengths, what motivates us, what aligns to our true values and step into our individual personal power, it then become easier to release and give less oxygen to our more negatively perceived traits. And when we do this, it becomes clearer to others what our strengths are. When we understand and support each other’s strengths, we become stronger, more balanced and more focused as a group or society, and we then have the ability to achieve more together as a whole.

If we are able to focus on the positive aspects of the year of the tiger, 2022 looks set to become a year of innovation, continuous positive change and purposeful, energetic, strengths-based leadership, collaboration and personal development. Wishing you all a happy, energised and prosperous new year!