Ditch the resolutions. Design your new year.
Image: Glenn Carsten Peters
I love the optimism, inspiration, enthusiasm that comes with the start of a new year. I’m convinced that there’s something powerful about the collective January energy of setting intentions and starting fresh (and research does show this “fresh start” effect can be impactful.) There’s something about dreaming bigger, seeing new possibilities, and claiming what you want to create and experience that reminds us that, after all, this is our show.
None of us gets the final say on everything that happens around us, but we all do have a say in what we choose to create and experience every year. Being intentional about that is an extremely practical (and good common sense) practice, not only for achieving goals but for our well being.
Two things I'm not so crazy about, though? The way we set and talk about New Year’s resolutions. And the Negative Nellies and Cynical Cindys who prefer to rain on the fresh start parade.
Resolutions too often come from the place of not-enough.
They are, too often, all about making ourselves “better” in some way. They’re more often based on (perceived) flaws instead of strengths, on chasing acceptability or improvement instead of meaning or fun or fulfillment. Sometimes, we call them goals, but we treat them the same way. They aren't reaching toward something meaningful and fulfilling. They're focused on being less of what we don't want. Or more of what we think we should be. That’s hardly motivating.
And then, inevitably, out comes the anti-improvement squad. You know, the articles and jokes about how everyone fails at resolutions (so why bother). The mocking of proven tools and processes (that the mocker has often never tried). The raised eyebrow look at others' excitement of visioning, planning, intending and setting something big in motion.
What an unpleasant and unproductive circle we can culturally create around this whole fresh start thing. When we could choose a joyous, energizing and life-changing experience of intentionally designing something that we do want.
If you ditch the old stories about resolving to be better, smarter, thinner, richer, a better saver, or whatever it is this year and instead design the coming year as you'd like to experience it, trust me, your life will change. And that change will happen if your vision doesn’t happen exactly according to plan (don’t worry, it just won’t).
What if, this January…
You set a vision or an intention of how you’d like your year to end up. How you’d like to feel, what you’d like to experience, focus on, forget about?
You do that in the way that feels most motivating to you, regardless of what others are doing. What will get you fired up? What questions get you dreaming and scheming?
You start from the premise that you’re just fine as you are. You’re more than fine – you have a unique set of strengths, values and desires ready to work for you.
You look less outside yourself for the magic bullet and more at committing to create more of what you want with love and respect for yourself and your goals and plans.
You take anything off your list that is not meaningful, fulfilling and moving you towards a bigger vision (or adjust it until it is that).
You make decisions about how you're going to experience the year and where you'd like to focus your energy, and practice at those.
You ask yourself why you want to create everything on your list (honestly).
You start as you mean to go on, breaking down your vision into simple habits and small steps that you can start right now, instead of a big push now that peters out later.
You engage the support you need to make positive steps towards your vision and trust the process you choose.
You join me in leaving negativity and cynicism where it belongs. Trust me, it's much more fulfilling to engage in your life and experiment with creating what you envision for yourself (even when plans go awry) than to waste time on listening to any of that.
You meet me back here this time next year and tell me how it went.
Cheers to all that you're creating this year!
