I used to hate on New Year’s Resolutions. I even wrote an article about it when I was rambling for my college’s newspaper (you can read it here, though I don’t know why you’d want to). But last year, a new concept was introduced to me. I don’t know exactly who or where it came from (maybe from many places), but it is the idea of new year’s intentions rather than resolutions.
For me, the difference between new year’s intentions and resolutions is that resolutions are specific, usually number oriented, and hard to achieve, while intentions are more of a commitment to a slow and steady change. For instance, you can make a resolution to go to the gym five days a week, or you can set an intention to live a healthier life this year. The first one makes it really easy to fail — you could get sick on January 2nd and miss out on the entire first week and then — off to such a bad start — why keep going? But if it’s your intention to live a healthier life this year, maybe you’ve started off slowly and are swapping out two meals a week for healthier versions and trying to get to bed on time. And who knows — maybe by June that healthier lifestyle will turn into going to the gym five days a week, but in this way, it’s more likely to stick.
I think that the vagueness of an intention sets me up for success. In 2017, for instance, I decided that I wanted to be more creative. This was the very first time I had ever thought about setting a new year’s intention and I was pretty vague about the specifics, I just knew that I wanted to make things in 2017. I had that idea in my head all year long. I was thinking about it when I was finishing my book, when I was making things for my Etsy store, when I was writing posts for this blog. And I think I had a really successful year, when I think about what I set out to do at the beginning of it.
In 2018, since I feel like I did a pretty good job of keeping up with my intentions in 2017, I got a little bit more specific and came up with some specific goals in addition to intentions.
One of my intentions is to get stronger and eat healthier. I’d really love to get deeper into yoga and hike more often, as well as eat more healthy foods on a daily basis. I hope that this turns into me taking better care of my body in 2018. Another intention is to travel more, and I don’t really care where I end up with that one. I’d travel pretty much anywhere, I’m just hoping that I can do more of it this year. I already have a short weekend trip planned to see First Aid Kit (band) in Detroit next month, so I’m pretty excited about that one. Another one for me is to move into my own place. I don’t want to get specific about whether I buy a house (a very small one, obviously) or rent something, I just want to finally be a true adult and get out of my parents’ house this year. Most importantly, though, my biggest intention for 2018 is to let go. That seems pretty vague, but basically I want to let go of expectations, let go of worrying about what other people think about me, let go of worry in general, if I can. More specifically, I really want to stop keeping all of my little projects quiet (namely, this blog and my store). I haven’t really shared them with many people and I don’t mention them on social media. I want to let go of the fear of releasing things that I’ve made out into the world in 2018
Which leads me to some more specific goals that I’d like to meet this year. Firstly, I’d like to let my novel go. I want to get it to a point where I can start querying agents with my manuscript this year, and hopefully towards the beginning of it. I’d also like to post 75 or more times on my blog, and make at least 100 sales through my Etsy shop.
And this is really exciting (right now, at least) — I’m recording one second of video every single day using the 1 Second Everyday app, and I’m going to put it together at the end of 2018 as a summary of my year.
I also wrote the word “love” on my list of goals. I don’t know what that will mean yet, but I’m going to start with being easier on myself and cultivating a lot of self-love.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got planned (so far) for 2018. It’s already shaping up to be a really great year, and I’m excited about everything that’s going to come next.
Happy planning, friends. Thanks for stopping by.
Mary E. Nolte 