No resolutions, please.

{I want 2013 to be amazing for you. So for the month of January, my two-hour Revolution In A Day sessions are Pay What You Can! Two hours of gentle strategizing to get clear on how you can eliminate stress and anxiety. Schedule your session here and I’ll be in touch.}

I’ve certainly made a few resolutions.

The classics: more exercise, less sugar, no more stupid boys. {Ahem.}

Like most, they stuck for a while- and then I was plagued by the same guilt that seems to sweep the country sometime mid-February as we collectively watched our New Year’s resolutions fall away like snowflakes. Miss a day or two of exercise or splurge on some leftover Christmas chocolate and it felt like the whole resolution thing was shot. Might as well give it up. Maybe next year I’d be successful.

I don’t make resolutions anymore.

There are a few reasons for that- I’ll admit, there were years I forgot that I was supposed to have one and was caught by surprise. Resolutions don’t seem like something one should choose willy-nilly, so in those absentminded moments I would abstain or choose something vague. And then I noticed I was a lot happier without something to feel guilty about. Not surprising, right?

There’s a difference between resolution and intention.

Here’s the way I think about the two:: Intentions are guided less by a desired outcome and instead stem from a feeling or practice that you wish to bring into your life in greater abundance. They’re a little softer. More gentle. But no less powerful.

Within intention there is space for listening and adapting. Shifting course as needed. And still staying “right on track”.

We typically like to set resolutions that revolve around numbers, timeframes. accomplishments. Pounds lost, X times-per-week, hard numbers that you either reach, or you don’t.  The problem with this most common of approaches is that doesn’t consider the one thing that always seems to “get in the way”: 

Life. The things that are out of your control. Other priorities that surface unexpectedly.

Resolutions often focus on the end goal, the “what”, without considering the “why”. And without a deeper, driving reason behind making a shift, chances are it won’t stick. We are creatures of habit and changing them is difficult to say the least- so why not, your subconscious says, just do the same thing we’ve been doing? It’s been working out alright.

So as you consider making a New Years Resolution, examine your desires in a different light. Why is it that you want to go to the gym five times a week? Why meditate every morning? When guided by a desired feeling,

• Turn “I will finally tackle my giant To-Do list!” into “I will take the tasks of each day one at a time so that I feel more in-control of my time and less frantic.”
• Or, “I will lose 15 pounds” turns into “I will feel healthy and agile in my body.”
• “I will learn to manage my stress” becomes “I will listen to the wisdom of my body and give it the rest and care it needs to reduce my stress symptoms.” 

Each of these intentions allows significant space for the “how” to evolve in a way that feels natural. There is space for redefinition- in two weeks you may discover that taking the tasks of the day one at a time means totally doing away with “To-Do” lists. Or maybe it means installing a beautiful bamboo dry-erase board onto which you can scrawl your daily dreams and visions.

At the same time, intentions challenge you to drop in and listen to your deepest intuition. The intuition that knows that dropping 15 pounds isn’t really healthy for your body; that knows you thrive on scheduled days, or not; and to actually hear. Consider, and implement. To use your intuition to shape the How. 

So share below: are you conjuring up this year’s intentions yet? Did you already have a list of resolutions? What do you think you might choose?

Tagged as: anxiety relief, listen to your intuition, manage your stress, New Years Resolution, setting intentions