3 Simple Ways to Reflect and Set Intentions for the New Year

Introduction

Does anyone else feel like the new year sneaks up on you every time? I find myself saying “I can’t believe ________ is here already” or “Can you believe that this month is already over?”. I was thinking about my 2023 wrap up for TickTick and my intentions associated with focus time. My brain told me that we’re only a few months into the year, but the calendar says otherwise!

There’s actually a scientific explanation for this. Essentially it’s that as we get older, we experience more, so there are fewer novel experiences for us compared to when we were kids. Novel experiences = time seeming to go slower. Once we get into the mundane routines of adulthood, we fly by on autopilot and everything becomes a blur.

Because of this, taking the time to set your intentions and plans to accomplish them at the beginning of the year is so important. However – this is more than making some arbitrary resolutions that your heart isn’t in. True intentions that will help you grow involves reflection, knowing your values, and making a plan

Why Reflection Matters

There’s power in looking back in order to move forward contrary to some advice. You can’t plan where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been. Sometimes we get stuck in a loop of thinking that we’ll just ‘try again’ if we don’t accomplish something the first time. Without reflecting on why a plan may not have worked or why a goal wasn’t reached, we can’t know what we need to change.

Take some time to reflect on what you wanted to accomplish this year. Some common obstacles to this are feeling that you’re too busy or that it’s uncomfortable to do so. It’s so worth pushing through though because you can learn a lot!

For example, I look back at some of my health goals and realized I was falling short of my expectations. I learned that I needed to give myself some grace because bodies with EDS just might not be able to do some things that other non-hypermobile bodies can. On the flip side, I also realized that I wasn’t doing things like prioritizing protein AND consistency. Reviewing some Garmin data showed me that I was solid and consistent in ’21 and ’22, but have been hit and miss over the past two years. Those numbers weren’t something I loved seeing, but it was a dose of reality that I simply can’t keep using excuses to justify skipping workout days. It gives me something to work on for the coming year that I may not have thought of as much without reflecting on it. Intentions don’t always have to come from something deep and spiritual. Sometimes they come from cold hard data.

The 3 Simple Ways to Reflect and Set Intentions

1. Celebrate Your Wins

Every step of progress you make is important to acknowledge, no matter how small. Without seeing even minute wins, it’s easy to give up on our goals. When you track your progress you’ll see how baby steps, even an inch of progress that happens over and over again add up to huge results!

Now, when I say celebrate, I don’t mean that you need to reward yourself with cake and ice cream at every opportunity. I mean to give yourself some time to pause and acknowledge it. Allow yourself to be proud! Tell people who will celebrate with you! This is more about recognizing the work and effort it took to accomplish something instead of brushing it off as ‘no big deal’. Changing habits is hard. Even something as small as adding a vegetable to dinner is considered a progress and something to be proud of!

2. Learn from Challenges

We all face challenges when it comes to accomplishing anything. You’ve heard the old adage of ‘if it were easy, everyone would do it’. Reframing setbacks and challenges as opportunities for growth can really help you overcome those challenges. Let your creative juices flow in order to find solutions to those challenges, if it’s possible.

Ask yourself what one lesson you’ve learned from a tough moment that you experienced this year

One thing that I’ve learned is that no matter how much I want to, the likelihood of being able to workout in the evening when I get home is pretty low. I tried and failed many many times. It’s near impossible to fit it in during the evening. Between getting home, making dinner, and spending time with my family, my energy is tanked at that point. My solution? I use my lunch and wellness time to work out during the day. By doing it then, not only does it get done, but I also have a lot more energy and it prevents the dreaded afternoon slump.

3. Define Your Values and Align Your Goals and Intentions

When your values guide your goals and intentions, they stick. This means setting your goals based on what is important to you instead of societal expectation. Getting swept up in the FOMO of social media or developing standards based on altered and idealized photos on the internet lead us down road of disconnection. We disconnect with what we want, who we are, and where our priorities lie.

Internet trends tend to hype us up and leave us feeling like we NEED to engage in them. But what if they just don’t mesh with your values? For example, maybe you see everyone talking about the carnivore diet, but you don’t want to eat meat. Do you compromise your values and hop on the meat train? Or do you stick with what feels right to you and limit or eliminate it? Crossfit and Peloton certainly had their time in the spotlight, but what if group classes give you anxiety or high intensity workouts aren’t advised for you?

Try this: List your 3 core values and write some goals or intentions for each one. Struggling to find what your values are? If you work with me, you’ll take a values finder test with in-depth results that can guide you

Once you understand your values, you can align your choices with them to achieve a level of wellness that fits YOU. And it’s not just about your diet and exercise, this encompasses all areas of wellness including who you spend time with, where, how you stretch your creative legs, etc.

Making It Happen

I get it, you’re busy. Reflection and intention setting feels like something that happens once a year IF you’re lucky, right? Not necessarily. Taking time to engage in these practices, even for just a few minutes once a week can help keep you on track. Try journaling, making a vision board, or quietly meditating.

My go-to method is great for those who are very logic oriented. After going through the process to figure out what I want to focus on and setting goals in each life area for the year, I break them into smaller steps in month. I enter that as a note in TickTick. Every Monday, I review my monthly goals to see what I need to work on for the week and reflect on what I’ve accomplished thus far. This allows the process to be a living sort of entity that changes and evolves as I need it to.

It’s okay if your process isn’t perfect – what matters is that you start. You can refine your process as you review and reflect on what you’re doing to move forward.

Conclusion

Reflecting and learning from your journey doesn’t have to be complex, it just needs to be consistent and something that you enjoy doing. Celebrate all your wins, whether they are large or small. Take a look at your challenges and barriers and decide if you need to pivot, regroup, or double down. Most of all, align your goals with your values in order to give them some sticking power. Use these tips to create the life you’ve wanted in ways that are personal to YOU.

The best part of this process? It’s yours to shape. Let make this next year your most intentional one yet!

Share one of your wins from this year in the comments – I’d love to celebrate with you!