As we move into the new year and you’re reflecting on what you want to achieve (not in a New Year Resolutions way) it’s good to think about your intentions for the year.
I’m not a fan of New Year Resolutions either personally or professionally. Why? Because, like everyone else, I have a long list of NYR failures scattered behind me and from a professional perspective, I know that they have a high failure rate and as we know, failure is rarely a good motivator to keep on going.
So do we just abandon the concept of change at this time of year? Absolutely not! It’s more about how we approach change that brings us a sense of making it more within our reach.
So what can I do?
Try swapping resolutions for intentions. Where a resolution comes with a specific goal which means that the moment you stop working towards that goal, it can feel like it’s just not going to happen and therefore is more likely to lead to you giving up, intentions are more gentle and less rigid.
A resolution may be something like ‘I want to lose weight’ which is a good thing to want to achieve but it brings with it a sense of pressure, denial (of the foods that you enjoy), it is a statement without commitment and as a stand-alone method of motivation, it is less likely to maintain momentum and enthusiasm beyond the first few days of January.
Now think of it through an intention. Instead of ‘I want to lose weight’, reframe it as ‘I eat well to nourish my body and go for daily walks’. Setting that intention helps to achieve the same thing but it’s much more gentle and takes away the pressure, just giving you an approach to live by.
How does that make a difference?
Intentions are more about how you want to live and feel rather than the end goal because there can be a real challenge with purely focusing on end goals. They can create an increased level of stress and if you don’t achieve them absolutely, they can leave a feeling of failure even when you’ve done really well.
So for 2025, set your intentions for how you want to live; nurturing yourself and your family, creating small changes that will lead to bigger results and creating a sense of wellbeing that helps you move forward in a more holistic way.