Against resolutions
Do you really need another goal right now?
Please, friends, I’m begging you: Don’t set a New Year resolution for 2022.
This will sound familiar to longtime readers. Every January I offer some version of the following as a suggestion but this year it’s more of a plea. And not just for the sake of your own well-being.
I stopped setting resolutions years ago because I realized that, despite my being extremely goal-oriented, they always missed the mark on several levels:
Too Narrow—My resolutions focused on only one area of my life (e.g. work or health) and did not account for the interplay of these areas. And this investment in one area over the others was often to their detriment.
Too Rigid—I set resolutions on a particular (but rather arbitrary, if you think about it) date, then over time priorities and circumstances would shift and the goal would lose its relevance or urgency.
Too Self-Centric—This may not be the case for you, but my resolutions were always about me. About “bettering” myself in some way. They allowed me to be simultaneously self-absorbed and self-critical. Ugh.
So I started a new personal tradition of setting an intention at the start of each year. Unlike a resolution that is about achieving a goal, the intention is about embodying a quality. It’s less about what we do and more about who we are.
How we show up. What we bring.
You can see why setting a noble intention is a wiser way to turn the corner into this particular new year:
An Integrated Life—Our intention can benefit every area of our life, connecting and balancing them. Life, work, health, family, community, money… all are essential, nothing needs to be left out.
Adaptive & Unfolding—Our intention can meet any circumstance, including and especially those we cannot foresee. In practicing our intention in these challenging moments, it reveals new depth and dimension we hadn’t anticipated when we initially set it.
Always in Relationship—Our intention serves us and our mission, but it also serves our community. If we show up with greater patience or kindness or courage or curiosity, etc. wherever we go, the people around us benefit as much as we do. And our relationship to self shifts from judgment to generosity.
Now more than ever, intentionality is the way.
This week
I created this workbook to help us all set a powerful intention we can practice with all year. Please feel free to share with friends, family and teams—this is a wonderful practice to do in community with others.
Here’s to an intentional 2022. What will you bring? What does that look like in action, starting this week? This morning? This moment?
(Yes, I do really want to know! Use the comments below to share your noble intention with our growing community, and to offer support and encouragement to the others who join you there.)
My intention for 2022 is: depth. Not to stay at the surface but to dig deeper. Depth of insight and wisdom through depth of practice. Depth of connection and community through deep generosity. Depth of transformation and impact through the depth of my own discipline and effort. This isn’t a “more is better” intention but a “slow down and ground, excavate to illuminate” one.