You're listening to the Allender Center podcast with Dr. Dan Allender.

Last week, Dan and his wife Becky Allender talked about ending the year with intention and care.

Here, Dan and Becky turned toward 2018 and ponder the hope and fear that comes with moving into a new year,

inviting you to wonder about the story your life will tell in the year ahead.

Well, I have spoken this to my wife since we're coming a little bit later than January 1st,

but to say to you again, Becky, happy new year.

And to the folks listening, happy new year to you.

Happy New Year to you.

And so as we begin thinking about how to enter into the year, what you can bring from, assuming

that you did some level of reflection, what you can do to begin

that process. We've got six things that kind of want to talk about. So we'll just start with this

very important first. Don't slide into the new year. You know, the exhaustion and stress of the holidays, a bit of a break and then a new

holiday, New Year's Eve. For a lot of people, they stumble, maybe a little bloated and a little

bit poor into the new year. And it just seems like it's possible to get in the mayhem and the fast track so quickly

that with SADS, seasonal affective disorder, with exhaustion, you know, a lot of people join

clubs in the early part of January, but the clubs don't see those people by the time

January ends. So there's a lot of frenzy in the beginning, and it often peters out very quickly.

How can we create a beginning that actually takes us through much of the new year? And so that first point of just don't slide.

It's your life. It's your one and only life. And if you don't write your story, I promise you,

someone will write it on your behalf. And so what we're going to do is just repeat the obvious

phrase.

Don't go forward until you go back.

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