It’s easy to get excited about all the new possibilities in the New Year. Are you imagining a big life transformation or planning to remove the weeds from an already flourishing garden? Are you thinking, “I’ve tried this before and I’m still stuck in the same old rut.” This year we are going to do something a little different. It may seem like a small tweak but sometimes it’s the little shifts that make the biggest impact.
If you missed yesterday’s New Year’s Eve post, How Do I Make a New Year’s Resolution that Sticks? Go back and read that first, that’s part one.
What do you want more of in 2019?
Now that you have reflected on 2018 and made a list of what you want to see in 2019. Let’s take a look at that list.
- What do you most want to experience?
- What challenge do you want to overcome?
- How do you want to serve others?
- What would you be most grateful for?
- What do you want to learn or accomplish?
- What would you like to start doing and why?
- What would you like to stop doing and why?
- Who do you want to check in with more?
- Who would you like to be in your top 3 people of positive impact in your life in 2019?
- What do you most want to be celebrating at the end of 2019?
What Do You Really Want in the New Year?
Do you see any patterns emerging? Are you wanting to make changes in your health and fitness; in your relationships, in your finances? Did you want to start a new hobby or focus on an old one? How do you want to serve and connect with others? Who do you want to spend more time in your life with?
Let’s say a lot of your answers reflect Health and Fitness. Maybe you want to lose weight or exercise more. Instead of writing out a resolution, “I am going to lose weight in 2019 or a specific goal I am going to lose 20 pounds before June,” we are going to visualize our intention behind that resolution or goal. Our intention might be, “I want to live a healthy and fit lifestyle in 2019.” You can read more about the differences of a goal, a resolution, and an intention in my previous post, “Should I create goals, make a resolution, or set intentions in the New Year.”
The intention to live a healthy and fit lifestyle will lead you toward successfully meeting your resolution to lose weight because if you are living a fit and healthy lifestyle you will lose weight. So it is important to make sure your intention is one that will generate movement toward your goals and resolutions.
Why Should I Set an Intention instead of a New Year’s Resolution?
The intention may just seem like a broader stroke of your resolution or goal but what it is really doing is getting closer to the Why behind your desire to lose weight. Maybe your extra weight is causing you a medical condition and you want to be healthier. Maybe you want to enjoy a more active lifestyle and you are carrying around too much weight to enjoy those activities so you want to be more fit
Once you have set your intention, some thing like, “I want to live a healthy and fit lifestyle in 2019,” let’s take it one more step further. Think about why you want to live a healthy and fit lifestyle. Do you want to take up an old sport you played as a youth? Do you want to make getting up off the couch easier? Do you want to improve your chances for a long healthy life so you can see your grandchildren grown up?
Now, take your New Year’s Best Intention and add your why by using the conjunction ‘because.’
I want to _______________ this year because __________________.
For example, “I want to live a fit and healthy lifestyle this year because I want to actively enjoy my grandchildren.” Another example might be, “I want to live without debt because I want to be free of the anxiety of owing anyone.”
How does this intention turn into a successful New Year’s resolution?
Now that you’ve set your intention and have a pretty good ‘Why’ to back it up. How dose this intention make your New Year’s resolution happen? How do you attain your original goal, say to lose 20 pounds? Living your intention is where the rubber meets the road. It is where the greatest impact on your life is going to happen. It is how you turn this year into your Best Year!
Write your Intention with the ‘because statement’ on two post it notes and put one somewhere you will see it everyday. I put mine on the bathroom mirror. Read this aloud to yourself every morning and every night. Put the second post it note in your journal, planner, or calendar. Every night read it and reflect on it.
What did you do that was in alignment with your intention? What did you do that wasn’t in alignment with your intention? Write down three things you are going to do tomorrow that are in alignment with your intention? Did you complete the three things you were going to do today? If not, what held you back.
Every morning take a look at your intention and the three things you wrote down last night to do today. Do these three things still seem like the top 3 things you can do today to press on and live out your intentions for the day? If not, modify them and set out to tackle them.
Just this practice of writing out your top 3 To Do items, doing them, and reflecting on them each day will help you gain momentum toward living an intentional life.
So This is how you intentionally create your Best Year!
- Reflect on last year
- Make Your Wish List for Next Year
- Set an Intention that will fuel your list
- Reflect on Your Intention daily
- Make at least 3 of the tasks on your To Do list ones that keep you pressing toward your Intentional Year.