Harnessing the power of the new year
When I was younger, I never bought into new year resolutions. The way I saw it, any day was the perfect day to do something that was important to me.
I still think this is true, but only part of the story. In fact, through my personal journey from burnout and lack of fulfillment, the days before and after New Years Day have become powerful and important to me. They are possibly some of my favorite days of the year. In reflecting on my personal journey and experience as a coach, I want to offer ideas to those looking for a way to make meaning of this week and yearly time of transition.
Start with reflection
In general, I see the new year as a time for reflection. In the early years of doing this, I focused on reflecting on my values. That was it, I just intended to explore and better understand my values. As surprising as it may seem, many people have only a superficial understanding of their values, unless they have done intentional work to explore them. This was the case for me. It took probably 3-4 years of coming back to this exercise of identifying my values until I felt I had arrived at a place where they were fairly clear and consistent.
Now, I start my yearly reflection by looking at my values, seeing if there is any refinement needed after the past year, or whether I feel compelled to further explore my definition of each value and how aligned my actions are with these values.
Next, I reflect on the past year. What have I learned about myself? What has gone well? What has been a challenge? For me, this includes my inner experiences, my home and professional life and how I see myself within the broader context of the world.
Setting intentions
Finally, I spend a few days noticing what ideas come up as I reflect on my values and the last year. What do I desire more of in my life? What do I want less of? Notice that I do this over several days, maybe even a week. This is to avoid reactions - being pulled toward something because I feel inadequate, have fear, or want to impress someone.
When I feel like I’ve arrived at an intention from an authentic place, I write down a few intentions. They can be broad, they can be specific. The point here is definitely not perfection, but thoughtfulness, earnestness, and self-compassion. Sometimes my intentions are questions - “what would it be like to live more in my value of authenticity?”
Regardless of the intention I set, I learn about myself, and that's the true beauty of this reflection-intention cycle. For example, one year I decided to create specific aims that would ‘achieve’ my intention. I planned to go plant based, not drink alcohol, and get up at 5 every morning to meditate. You can imagine how that went. I quickly recognized that I was still very plugged into the mindset of striving and trying to be ‘better’, and by February I had set a more realistic intention - to practice and learn more about self-compassion.
This year, in reflecting on my values, I want to continue the intention of practicing an abundance mindset. I’m also feeling a call to more authenticity within my professional life. For this, I’m focusing more on a question - what would it look like to be authentic and true to myself in every area of my life, including my professional one?
TLDR (Too long didn’t read)
The new year offers an opportunity to set intentions for your life
Reflecting on your values; what they are and how you are/are not aligned with them is a beautiful place to start
Intentions do not have to be set on January 1st to be valuable, allow yourself to contemplate for days-weeks
Setting the intention is the beginning, and the journey from that place is where the true learning and growth happens
Helpful resources
Values exercise by Brene Brown
Living the questions - On Being
Intention stems:
This year I aim to bring more ______ into my life
Connect to a singular theme: e.g. courage or simplicity
I will practice ________.
I aim to cultivate _________.
I will explore _________.
What would it look like to be aligned with my value of ________?