Photo: Color Joy Stock
2020. What. A. Year. I’m guessing that you, like me, are ready to leave 2020 behind and head into the new year ready for some much-needed change. Traditionally, the start of a new year calls us to make a resolution and spend the beginning part of our year making it happen. It’s a time for improvement and renewal buoyed by hope and inspiration. However, if you’re looking to make a deeper, lasting change and achieve greater success in both your personal and professional lives, I’d encourage you to forgo the resolutions this year and instead set an intention.
What’s the difference? A resolution is a specific goal to achieve your desired result typically brought on by a perception of weakness and a need for improvement in an explicit part of your life. For example, common resolutions include exercising for weight loss, healthy eating to reduce cholesterol, signing up for a class to develop new professional skills.
An intention, however, is an overarching idea of how you want to live a life that aligns with your values and, in turn, drives your actions and decisions. I liken it to the top of an organizational chart. At the very top is your intention, and beneath it lies the different parts of your life (professional, relationships, etc.). Stemming from each subdivision are the many ways that you can incorporate your intention in order to achieve improvements and success within the scope of that part of your life. In this approach, you provide yourself with an overall roadmap for how to live your life in accordance with this value that trickles out to all the parts of your life.
If you’re ready to make a profound impact on your life, here are the actionable steps you can take to successfully set an intention and implement it into your life.
Step 1: Reflect on 2020
Take a moment to look back at your year in order to understand what aspects of life are important to you and where you can create and cultivate inspired action to achieve more balance and purpose. Reflect on both the wins and the challenges. Trying to assess your overall approach to life.
Step 2: Create Your Vision for 2021
Based upon this reflection, ask yourself, “How do I want to move forward in 2021?” What vision do you have for yourself in this upcoming year within the various parts of your life? It is this vision of yourself that will help you pinpoint the attributes that you need to embody in order to achieve this evolution.
Step 3: Set Your Intention
Once you’ve imagined how you will personally define a successful year, you can begin to brainstorm power words or phrases that sum up your overall vision. Go through your list and pick the top two or three that resonate the most with you. Visualize what it would look like to have each intention guiding you throughout your daily life, and based on this projection, you’ll know which direction to head towards for your intention.
For example, if I reflected on a year that felt constrained because of a lack of work opportunities and a quarantined social life, an intention that might resonate with me is “to be limitless.” This intention would then translate into seeking out or creating opportunities for myself in my professional life and finding ways to expand my outlook and create abundance in my personal life.
If you would like some extra help with finding an intention, I invite you to try out my guided meditation on intention setting on my podcast, “Responding to Life: Talking Health, Fertility, & Parenthood.”
Step 4: Infuse Your Intention Into Your Daily Life
Resolutions can be tough to maintain because they are so specific and rigid. The benefit of an intention is that it can be flexible and flow with how your life unfolds. Because your intention is an overarching concept, you can play around with your interpretations of it on a daily or weekly basis.
The key to staying accountable with your new year’s intention, however, is to call it to mind every morning. Whether you are able to sit in a three-minute meditation or just reflect on your intention during your morning routine, by calling to mind your intention, you can set a road map for your day making sure to infuse and manifest this value into your plans each day.
“As you head into this new year of much-needed renewal and hope, I encourage you to cultivate this vision of yourself each day with inspired action to create lasting success in all aspects of your life.”
—Josephine Atluri, Host of the Podcast "Responding to Life"
About the author: Josephine Atluri is an expert in fertility and motherhood mindfulness and meditation and in helping others overcome adversity to find joy. Through her unique journey on her path to becoming a mom of five, Josephine weathered many ups and downs with miscarriages, IVF, international adoption, and surrogacy. Channeling her experience to find calm and courage and to focus on perseverance, she now helps others navigate life’s curveballs through online meditation training, fertility mindfulness workshops, and her podcast, “Responding to Life.”
Josephine is a regular content contributor for Motherly and Red Tricycle and she is also a preferred mental wellness provider for The Fertility Tribe, The IVF Warrior, Robyn, and the Fertility Circle. Josephine’s expertise has been featured in Woman’s Day, Prevention Magazine, Mind Body Green, Well + Good, The Bump, Peanut, and the L.A. Times. During this time of extreme isolation and anxiety, Josephine shares practical stress management tips including tools to help ground yourself via the free meditation videos on her site www.jatluri.com. For a free monthly video meditation and wellness tips, be sure to sign up to receive her monthly newsletter on her site. For daily inspiration, be sure to follow her on Instagram @josephineratluri.
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