This year was many things.

Of course, nothing, and I mean nothing, happened the way I thought it was going to. I mean I don’t think anyone could have predicted what was going to go down. And while we are still in it, it seems like we are closer to the end of it all than the beginning.

My foundations were stress-tested this year in ways that I never really knew were possible.

Some areas I grew. Some areas I retracted. But all in all, I am still here standing strong and that’s what really matters in the end.

The word “grace” kept on showing up over and over this year.

While not all of it was “graceful” I think for the first time in my life I recognized what it truly means to give myself grace in a time where everything seemed to be flying off the rails. Even as the world was going nuts, it became clearer and clearer to me what I had to do and why.

I don’t think I could have really said that before.

Discovering purpose has always been an elusive topic for me. It’s such an etherial concept and in the times that I thought I really had something to work with, it turned out that’s not what I was really meant to do at all. Maybe I was trying to make it more complicated than I really needed to. What I can tell you though is that even the simplest of callings call have a profound impact.

And that’s what I’ve really learned this year – how to really get to the root of it all.

The masters guided me to places in which I learned more than I ever had before. The Way became glaringly clear and for the first time I arrived to a untraveled path with no real sight of what it would bring. The intentions are good. The milestones were evident. And yet I know that who I meet on the other side of it all is someone I have never met before.

That stalled me out for a while.

The reason for that is a bit complicated. It comes back all the way to a message that I’ve been receiving for years now – to let go. The stalling occurred because I was attempting to let go of decades of routines and habits that built me into the person I am today.

It’s not that they were “bad things”…but they just weren’t great.

So that’s where I stayed most of this year. I stood right at the gates of the journey I am supposed to take and didn’t really move from there.

While it was incredibly frustrating at times, that word grace came back in.

And I realized that the most important part of all of this is that I’ve arrived at where I needed to be. It’s been decades. Literally. I’ve been searching for that long. And in having figured out what needed to be done, I just don’t think I quite had built the muscles of consistency yet to take that journey.

So I stood there and learned as much as I possibly could. I dove deeper and deeper to solidify my understanding of the way forward and still grew even though I wasn’t technically moving “forward.”

Depth.

I helped others. I guided them to where they wanted to go. They made huge changes in their lives as well. I coached my heart out this year even though there were so many seeds of fear that could have taken root in my heart.

I uplifted those around me even as I was still in my holding pattern.

Many things have fallen away this year. Many. And yet even though the loss was real, it uncovered a path that couldn’t be any clearer.

The only way out is through as Robert Frost once said.

I’m ready.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project