Setting Intentions for the New Year

I have always loved the beginnings of things, moments you can use to mark fresh possibilities, but I've never been good at setting New Year's resolutions. I always make them so complicated — hello, SMART goals! — and try to encompass too many areas of my life. I end up with a long list of resolutions — promises I'm making to myself that I never seem to keep. Recently, I've shifted to setting intentions for the New Year, instead of resolutions, and it has made a huge difference in my mindset as I work toward my goals.

Intentions Vs. Resolutions

The main difference between intentions and resolutions is in their breadth and specificity. While resolutions tend to be singular things you can check off on your to-do list or track — "I'm going to drink more water" or "I'm going to spend more quality time with my kids on the weekends" — intentions are more broad — "I'm focusing on my health"; "I'm prioritizing my family"; or even "health" and "family." Intentions can encompass multiple areas of your life, rather than zoom in on one piece, like resolutions. For example, you may set the intention to be more creative, which can apply to your work, your spirituality, your family, and your relationships, but a resolution to take on a new creative project at work only applies to one setting.

Why Set Intentions?

We know that very few people actually keep the resolutions they set for themselves. There are plenty of tips out there about how to be in the minority of people who succeed — ways to craft your resolution to perfection. But what if the issue is in the idea of the resolution itself? What if more specificity, discipline, and accountability isn't the answer?

Your goals for 2022 shouldn't feel like punishments. If you are constantly tracking, reflecting, re-prioritizing, adjusting, and strategizing, your resolution that was meant to improve your life is going to begin to feel like tedious work.

Setting intentions allows for more ease and play. If your intention is to focus on your health, you might try hiking a more challenging trail, buying yourself a new water bottle, finding YouTube videos of free yoga, or checking out a new cookbook from the library. You have more freedom to experiment and find what actually feels good for you — instead of holding yourself "accountable" to an arbitrary weight-loss goal, number of days per week to exercise, or glasses of water to drink. When you are enjoying something, you're much more likely to stick with it and to create habits that will last for life.

Intentions also give us the room to discover what really works for us. Maybe through your exploration of focusing on your health, you take a Pilates class and end up loving it so much you sign up for a class once a week.

How to Set Your Intentions

Keeping in mind what makes intentions different from resolutions, if you try to set an intention the way you would set a goal, you're setting yourself up for the same struggles.

Instead of brainstorming your goals for the year, or things you want to improve about yourself, make two lists: (1) your top five values and (2) five things you enjoy.

Your lists might look something like this:

Values:

1. Family
2. Health
3. Helping others
4. Beauty
5. Nature

Things I enjoy:

1. Long bike rides on the trail
2. Mani/pedis
3. Cooking brunch for friends
4. Watching YouTube makeup tutorials
5. Lazy Saturday mornings

(Before we write intentions, consider how these could easily become strict resolutions. I will ride my bike three times a week. I will get a mani/pedi once a month. I will cook brunch for my friends every Sunday. I will watch and try two new makeup tutorials each month. If you only ride your bike twice or you skip brunch one Sunday, failure and shame creep in, making it next to impossible to form any kind of new habits or behaviors. That's the trap of resolutions!)

Next, think of ways that these lists might overlap, especially thinking about the ways you haven't made space for these things in the way you'd like to. Write out a few sentences. Use the present tense, as if you're already doing these things.

Yours might look something like this:

• I'm spending time sharing nature with my family.
• I'm prioritizing my passion for all things beauty.
• I'm enjoying good food with good people.
• I'm resting.

How to Use Intentions Throughout the Year

Write your intentions down somewhere you will see them often. Share them with others or on your social media. It's also important to take time regularly to check in with yourself. Maybe you keep a note on your phone and keep track of different things you do that connect with your intentions. Maybe you write in a weekly journal or talk to your therapist.

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You can also use your intentions to help prioritize your time in ways that make you happy and reflect your values. If your intention is to spend more time in nature, you might decide to bring your coffee out to the back porch, instead of sitting in the kitchen. Your intentions help to guide actions from a gentle, compassionate place — not a place of enforcement.

2022: The Year of Intention

Changing your mindset from resolutions to intentions takes a little reframing, a lot of patience, and a fair amount of humility. If you want to grow more holistically, shift deeply ingrained habits, and nurture yourself, then I challenge you to take the leap this year.