Living With Intention
Happy 2023! With the start of the new year, like many others I am thinking about what I want to accomplish in 2023. The only reason to consider making goals or resolutions is my desire to live an intentional and purposeful life. The goal setting process is a moment to pause, reflect, and course correct.
Taking a few minutes to reflect on your life helps ensure time doesn’t get away from you and you continue to prioritize investing in yourself. Growing and evolving is critical for a purposeful, happy, and meaningful life.
While nothing prevents me from reflecting throughout the year (which is why I am not really a fan of New Year’s resolutions), it is helpful to have a catalyst, like the start of the new year. Culturally, it feels like the start of the year is the right time as the beginning of anything implies a clean slate from which to work.
Some may have a big, audacious goal which will require most of their time, energy and attention. But for most of us, by midlife, it is about tweaking things around the edges. We know ourselves better, our values, our priorities, and where we are falling short. Goal setting now is more a process of refining rather than large scale change and small, incremental steps rather than big, huge leaps.
So, what is my process?
The Five Buckets
I find it helpful to have a framework or structure when I want to accomplish a goal. Years ago, I came across a framework for a balanced life that has stuck with me. I use it when I want to check in on myself, assess the “balance” in my life, and see if I need to make any changes. I then run any new “action” items by my list of 5 core values to see if they are additive and in alignment with living a values-driven life. Perhaps it could be more thorough, but it seems to work, and I am always a fan of simple.
Health
This year I have 2 goals. I want to drink less, which means not having wine with dinner every night. I also want to continue to research options for my knees as the pain is preventing me from doing a lot of things I love, like skiing and strenuous hiking.
Family & Friends
One of my goals is to put more time into a specific relationship in my life. I’m putting reminders to reach out in my calendar as without a physical prompt, there is a good chance I will forget. Second, I am going to seek out opportunities to meet others equally interested in health and longevity. And third, I am going to focus on being more consistent with “please” and “thank you” with my husband and children.
Professional
I am going to make one new contact in the health and longevity spaces each week, as well as finish my midlife journaling project.
Spiritual
Through reading, a spiritual practice of the month club, and a course at Spirit Rock I am going to continue to explore the role of spirituality in my life.
Personal Development
I love learning new things and challenging myself. One of the pursuits I am going to take up this year is pickle ball! I am also going to sign up for a flower arranging class as I have always wanted to take one.
Putting It All Into Action
As I have written about in the past, committing to a new habit requires time and setting yourself up to succeed. In the case of adopting a new habit, commit for 100 days. And break your “big” goal into a series of small, even tiny, steps.
For example, maybe you want to take up meditation. Start by meditating for 1 minute, then 3 minutes, and work your way up to 15 to 20 minutes. If your goal is to get better sleep, pick one thing you can do: turn off screens an hour before bed, don’t have coffee after 9 am, or buy an eye mask and get used to wearing it. Start small…don’t let the enormity of the end goal overwhelm you.
Find ways to hold yourself accountable. Use your calendar. Tell someone else about your goal.
Make sure your goal, resolution, whatever it is, is important to you. If it isn’t important to you and you are doing it for someone else, it will always be a struggle and probably isn’t worth attempting.
Other Resources
This time of year everyone writes about resolutions, reflections, self-evaluations, and goal setting. If you are interested in a template and the above does not resonate, here are a few links to some which stood out from the others.
Ryan Holiday’s New Year New You Challenge (enrollment open until 1/6/23), based upon Stoic philosophy, is designed to help you “stop procrastinating on your dreams, make amends, rid yourself of negative thought patterns, let go of anger, form good habits, quit harmful vices, and be of service.” I have signed up as I have become interested in Stoic philosophy over the last year.
The Knowledge Project, one of my favorite newsletters, has “7 simple questions to help you reflect on the past year and make the next year unstoppable.”
And Sahil Bloom, who writes the Curiosity Chronicle, shares his Personal Annual Review, also a set of 7 questions. He offers a free PDF template which you can access here.
If your interest is more in how to achieve the goals and resolutions you make, The Growth Equation has a great piece, “3 Evidenced Based Strategies for Setting Goals and Resolutions.”
Parting Thought
“The biggest generator of long-term results is learning to do things when you don't feel like doing them. If you let excuses or emotion drive behavior, you're cheating your future self. Put aside the excuses and start doing what you need to do.” ~Ryan Holiday
To be continued…
