How to Set Your Intention and Design Your New Year
Many people like to set themselves New Year’s resolutions in January – you might not call it a resolution, you might call it a goal or intention.
Whether you have already set your New Year’s resolution or goals, are in the process of setting them or are struggling to find the best way to set them, this blog is designed for you!
It will help you set your intentions for the new year and more importantly create a structure that is fun and exciting to help you not only set, but achieve your goals.
Are you ready?
Make sure you have your pen and your favorite journal in front of you and let’s begin!
Setting an intention
I suggest that before you consider any specific goals, I invite you to first set an intention.
In Yoga, this is a common part of practice, where you set an intention (or Sankalpa in Sanskrit) first thing in the morning or just before your morning Yoga practice. I think this is a useful concept to use when setting and achieving your goals.
In this exercise the intention is the feeling you want to have as you move in the direction you desire, which is towards achieving your goal.
This feeling is most likely to be the feeling you want to have once you have arrived at your destination – your goal.
Because whatever your goals might be, you most likely want to achieve that goal because you want to feel something – like feeling happy, excited or at peace.
For me, my intention is that I want to feel aligned, content, fulfilled and peaceful but excited at the same time as I work towards my goal.
An intention is separate to goals. Goals are more specific and measurable and you’ll have to take small action steps to achieve these goals.
When you set an intention, it creates an internal energetic shift – you want to maintain that energy as you journey through to achieving your ultimate goals.
As you go through your journey, you might bump into obstacles or things might go more slowly than you’d hoped, and you might get this urge to give it all up.
If that happens, remember to always come back to your intention.
Write down your intention
Now, let’s write down your intention.
How do you want to feel as you move in the direction you desire?
How do you want to feel at the destination?
As I said previously my intention is that I want to feel aligned, content, fulfilled and peaceful but excited at the same time as I work towards my goal.
Take a few minutes to really feel the feelings you want to have. Aim to list 3 – 5 feelings. You can make one sentence or list the feelings – it’s completely up to you how you want to do this!
Just do what feels best for you 😊
Setting your goals
How did you find the intention setting exercise?
I know it can seem a little abstract, but it can really help us to focus on our goals and to also reassess them throughout our journey to achieving them.
If you are not feeling you are fulfilling your intention when working towards your goals, then either you need to reconsider your goals or maybe the methods you are using to achieve them.
So now it’s time to set your goals!
As I am sure you have heard before, you want your goals to be specific and measurable as well as giving specific time by which you want to achieve them.
You also want it to stretch yourself a bit as well. You don’t want it to be too unrealistic but try pushing yourself a little as you may be surprised at what you can achieve when you put your mind to it!
Now, holding onto that intention or feeling you want to have, spend 5 minutes writing down all the things or experiences you want in your life.
You should now have a list of things and experiences you want in your life.
Have a look at your list and pick 3 – 5 things you want to prioritise. This is when you need to be really clear on your priority in life.
And also think about WHY you want to have them in your life. This is your compelling reason for wanting to have this specific thing in your life. You want your goals to be important enough to want to achieve them!
So to recap, your goals will need to be specific and measurable with time attached to it.
And make sure that your goals are aligned with the feelings you want to have and each goal has a compelling reason to achieve them!
To make sure these goals are the ones you really want to achieve, I also suggest leaving it a day or two and come back and revisit your list, swap it around if you want.
The next step is to take action!
Taking action
Now, I personally think, and I’m sure you would agree that setting an intention and goals is the easy part, but taking action is a whole different story!
What I like to do is to write down all the action steps needed to achieve each goal, even the smallest action steps.
So if your goal is to “get a new job by the end of March 2022”, your action steps might be…
- Research a training course to develop a specific skill
- Book a training course
- Attend a training course
- Research and book a networking event in your industry
- Attend the networking event
- Update existing CV
- Apply for 3 jobs a week
… you get the idea!
So go ahead and write all the action steps you need to take under each goal you’ve written down.
Ok, so you should now have all the action steps you need to take for each goal. I would pencil in the dates when the action steps need to be completed.
I personally avoid putting these all into my diary straight away, as life happens! But if you prefer to schedule all the tasks in advance, go for it!
I do however suggest that you schedule the first specific action steps into your calendar for the coming 2 week to really help focus your mind and allow you to set time aside in your schedule to work towards these goals. Unfortunately they are not going to happen without you putting the work in!
You can use either a digital calendar or physical diary – it’s up to you! But somewhere it’s easy for you to look at on a daily basis, and make sure you stick to these schedules!
After 2 weeks, you may have not accomplished one or 2 things in your diary. You can then reschedule those action steps in the following 2 weeks into your diary, doing your best to get them done so your date for achieving your goal does not slip too much.
The most important part when it comes to taking action, is to feel the feelings you want to have as you journey through to achieving each goal.
Also you will inevitably feel uncomfortable taking these actions from time to time, especially if they are new things.
This is normal – you are creating the change!
And I have a perfect Yoga class for you to help you embrace this change. Take the class here!
Let Yoga & Ayurveda help you achieve your goal
Following an Ayurvedic daily routine can also help you with your journey.
The Ayurvedic daily routine, which is called Dinacharya, is designed to tune our bodies to the natural circadian (daily) rhythms and working with and finding rhythm in your daily life will help you sleep better, improve your energy and bring balance to your mind and body. Allowing you to to start working towards achieving your goals.
Understanding your Dosha, your mind-body type and following the right diet and lifestyle for your Dosha can also help with the journey as it will help balance your mind and body and as a result it makes it easier to manage challenging times which you will inevitably experience through the journey.
If you don’t know your Dosha – an Ayurvedic mind-body type yet, make sure to take my Dosha quiz right here!
I highly recommend that you learn how you can integrate Ayurveda into your life to help you achieve your goals!
If that’s something you are interested in, I would love to invite you to my brand new masterclass where you’ll learn how you can heal and balance your mind & body according to your mind-body type. Head over here to register for the masterclass!
Letting go of attachment
The final thing I’d like to mention before we wrap up is to let go of attachment to the end results.
Focus on who you are being as you journey towards to achieving the goal. Achieving the goal is an amazing thing. But remember that all the steps you are taking towards that goal is what makes you grow as a person.
You have all the tools you need to make your journey fun and exciting!
Wishing you a fantastic year ahead!
With love & gratitude,
Risa
P.S. I would love to know how you get on with your New Year intention setting! Let me know via DM on Instagram!