What do I want?

What do I want?

What do we want?

A sweet new year!

When do we want it?

Now!

In Devarim it says “meireishis hashana v’ad acharis shana – From the beginning of the year to the end of the year”. The Talmud explains that this verse is referring to the fact that our Rosh Hashona – at the beginning of the year – determines what will be at the end of the year – Elul. In fact, the term “acharis shana” means not only the year’s end, but it’s purpose. It’s the time to reflect on the year gone by, realise where we have perhaps not fulfilled what we might have hoped, and pledge anew to become closer to Hashem through following His mitzvos. The end of the year tells us whether everything we dreamed at the beginning of the year has been achieved.

The astrological symbol for Elul is Virgo – the Virgin. It represents the pure untouched spark of goodness in the heart of every Jew. And during Elul, we remember that that is who we want to be – that that is the state to which we seek to return.

So during this time of Elul, in order to both reflect on the year gone past, and in preparation for the year ahead, it might be worth spending some time thinking about what that picture of who we want to be is.

I always like the Sat Nav analogy – if we don’t put an address in the Sat Nav, how can we expect to take the right turns to get there?

We know that Hashem has given us a great kindness in giving us the gift of teshuva. He has given us an even greater kindness in judging us not entirely on what we HAVE done, but on what we INTENDED to do.

We know that one of the essential elements of teshuva, returning to Hashem, is confession. But how can we confess if we don’t know what it is that we have done to move us away from the path we want to be on? And can we know that unless we know what that path is?

Simon Sinek, in his book Start with Why shows that organisations that start with their ‘why’ – their reason – are more successful, and are more able to whether whatever changes come their way. For example, Apple has never positioned themselves as a computer company. Rather their success has come from positioning themselves as a company that challenges the status quo. They believe in thinking differently. The way in which they do that is by making their products beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. And they happen to make great computers. When music evolved from the record, to the tape, to the compact disc (remember them?!), it was always limited by the amount of space on each type of media. The music industry continued to try to sell us albums, but Apple released the iPod, that changed the way we consume music forever.

Knowing what the why of our personal company, Me.inc, gives us a prism through which to look at every scenario that comes our way, and stay true to who we really want to be. Which action aligns closer with my ‘why’?

So before we start looking at the steps we want to take to change our behaviours, and how we do that, lets take some time to think about what we would want those behaviours to be.

Take the time to build that picture as completely as possible – with as much detail as you can come up with. Dream big! This isn’t about what we want to achieve this week, this month or even this year. This is – if I could paint a perfect picture of who I want to be, and the life I want to live, this would be it.

This is a vast task, so it might be helpful to break it down into a few areas.

We know that an essential pre-requisite to any spiritual growth is to ensure that our physical wellbeing is in place. I know that I am in a much better position to think about all the other areas in my life when I have energy to do so. And that comes from making sure that I am well rested, hydrated, active, and eating healthy. Additionally, we have a commandment to look after the body that Hashem has given us – without it we wouldn’t be able to do any mitzvos at all!

Next, what do we want our relationship with Hashem to look like? In an ideal world? This might include practical things we want to be doing, such as davening, and also more emotive words to do with our relationship – love, trust, Emunah, bitachon. What does a relationship with Hashem look like to you?

In my personal life, I have found my relationship between myself and Hashem is very tied up with my relationship between myself and myself. So what do I want THAT relationship to look like? How do I want to think of myself? How do I want to talk to myself? Every relationship I have is between myself and someone else, so if I want to get that right, I am going to have start with myself!

Moving outwards, the people I have the most contact with, who mean the most to me, and who are really good at pushing all the wrong buttons when it comes to me being the person I want to be, is my family! So it might take some thinking about what I want that relationship to be. Again, big picture stuff – what do you want the relationship to look like? Later we can look at how we can make that picture happen, but this is just about creating the vision.

And lastly, is everyone else. What do my interactions with the rest of the world look like? How do I want the world to see me? I think this one is both easier – because they’re not people living with us in close proximity in our homes and in our hearts – and harder – because it feels much bigger, broader, more vague.

Of course, each of these is going to interact and overlap with the others – don’t get too hung up on which part of the picture it is. The most important thing is to build the biggest, most detailed picture you can. It make take some time, and you might want to come back to it as you think of more things. Luckily, you have the whole month of Elul!

Once you have the big picture stuff, then it’s time to start breaking it down a bit – what does having a loving relationship with my children actually look like? What behaviours and middos do I need to develop to achieve that? What does a trusting relationship with Hashem look like?

Building this picture not only helps us know what it is that we really want, and allow us to start creating steps to get there – but it tells Hashem what we really want.

It says – I know I’ve got a long way to go, and I know that I’ve messed up, and will almost definitely mess up again, but this is who I want to be. Please take that into account.

Big Picture stuff	More detail	Steps to get there	What stops me (confession)	How will I protect my goal
Physical Well-being
Between me and Hashem
Between me and myself
Between me and my family
Between me and other people