How to Set Loving New Year's Resolutions
This post is the 2nd in a 2-part series continued from last week’s The Step Before Making New Year’s Resolutions. If you haven’t read through that post or done the journaling recommended within it, take this week to do so, then visit this post next week.
Welcome back to the exciting endeavor of setting LOVING New Years Resolutions for 2017!
Now that you’ve taken a week to go over the year past, it’s time to set actions that align with your intention for 2017.
How This Process Is Different
Usually, people make a list of resolutions that are surrounded by energy that doesn’t align with their intention. For example, people create strategies around what it’s going to take to “get healthy,” which often involves restrictive diets, unrealistic movement schedules and no flexibility whatsoever for being human… which results in disappointment or burn out.
After years of doing it their rigid, overly-controlling, unrealistic way, I’m ready for a more gentle and loving approach that actually allows me to enjoy the journey. Aren’t you?
Ditch the deadlines, pitch the perfectionism, and embrace what it feels like to set Loving New Years resolutions instead of fear-based ones.
Today, I’m going to guide you to:
- center yourself in the energy you wish to guide 2017
- set Love-based goals for 2017
- create an open and flexible strategy (instead of the usual extreme and rigid ones that led you to burn out)
- go deeper if you’re ready to super-charge 2017 with heart and soul
The resolutions you’ll set here with me will be focused both on long-term and everyday goals based on your intention that you set in last week’s post. While I believe setting your sights on long term goals is a great way to inform your current actions, focusing on how to bring the qualities you desire into the everyday journey will make the path to those goals (aka your life) much more enjoyable.
Below are the steps to creating loving resolutions. May they help you release your limitations to make way for your true, strong, courageous self.
1. Review
If you didn’t get a chance to read last week’s post and journal through the prompts, click here to do it now! The rest of this process won’t make sense unless you do.
Done? Sweet.
Read through your writing from last week, then move onto the next step.
2. Call In The Energy
Bringing yourself into your intention for 2017 is an essential step to creating goals that align with it. From this place of being in the energy of your intention, you will envision and create the space for a life lived in this place.
All you have to do is:
- Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes.
- Bring your intention’s mantra to mind. If it’s one word, add “I am” in front of it. (ex: if your intention is “Fearless,” state “I am fearless” for the purpose of this centering meditation)
- Take 10 deep breaths, repeating your mantra with every one. Breathe into the feeling that this intention inspires. If 10 breaths doesn’t feel like enough to really go deep, then repeat this process with as many breaths as you need.
Do this somewhere where you can be alone. You really want to allow yourself to sink into this space, and you may find that it makes you a bit emotional. It's totally normal and absolutely ok.
You are safe here. You are worthy of realizing this intention.
3. Bring Your Intention to Life
Writing is the most direct route to self-discovery and understanding that I have yet to come across. We’re talking about the whole year ahead here! Writing it all out will help you be specific and intentional in creating your resolutions.
You don’t have to do all of this in one sitting. Feel free to do small chunks of time every day until it’s done if that helps you feel less overwhelmed. If you do, please make sure to take the steps above before picking back up where you left off in your writing.
Step 1:
Still in this place of being in your intention from the last exercise, free write through a day in the life of you living your intention.
If you’re stumped, start with these questions (optional):
- What time do you wake up? How do you feel?
- What do you do first to set the energy for the day?
- How do you feel going to your job? What is your job?
- How do you treat others?
- How do you talk to yourself?
- How do you nourish yourself?
- What/who do you surround yourself with?
Step 2
Taking your journaling from last week and Step 1 above into account, journal through these prompts:
1. What rituals or habits will help you create and maintain your intention?
After you write out your rituals/habits, ask yourself: are they realistic and Loving?For instance, if I don’t currently exercise, yet I’m intending to start a ritual of exercising 5 days a week, I may realize that it’s a bit extreme to go from sedentary to super-active without any in-between, which is either unrealistic or too demanding to sustain.If your rituals and habits aren’t realistic and Loving, ask yourself how you could be a bit more gentle in your approach, reminding yourself that slow and steady truly does win the race.Would these rituals or habits compromise your happiness? If not, is there another way that wouldn’t?For example, I used to put myself on restrictive diets for the goal of weight loss. They would take away all the pleasure of eating yummy food so that I'd dread eating the same meal over and over again. I’d suffer through it because I believed that I would only be able to enjoy my food once I got to my goal weight. I’d just be unhappy the entire way there.Waiting until you’ve achieved X, Y or Z to feel the way you want to feel will waste your life because life is lived on the way to your destination. Plus, sticking to a ritual or habit that doesn’t align with the energy of your intention usually doesn’t stick.Instead, I may choose to allow myself to eat any kind of food intuitively, committing to honoring my hunger cues and putting my fork down when I’m full. That way, I don’t feel deprived and the power over “bad foods” diminishes.
2. Are there any activities or events in 2017 that would support you in feeling aligned with your intention?
3. What activities, relationships or scenarios can you do your best to say "no" to in 2017 so that you prevent feeling inadequate or out of alignment?
If you can’t avoid an activity, relationship or scenario completely, can you limit your time spent with it? Is there a boundary you can set to honor your needs and desires? What could help you cope with the situation in a healthy way? Consider scheduling self-care before and after being in these situations to help alleviate the stress.
4. What are 2 tactics I can use to come back to this open and powerful place when I've strayed toward fear?
When you feel like you're forcing or gritting your teeth through something, you're likely out of alignment with your intention. When you feel this way, it's nothing to panic over. All that's needed is a gentle surrender into the fact that everything will work out as it's supposed to.Write this in your journal: "Forcing, pushing, over-controlling and rigidity never serve me. When I feel these things, I commit to letting go by either (tactic A) or (tactic B) ."
3 Tips to Stay in a Loving Place All Year
1. Deadlines inspire rigidity in most of us and so I recommend you don't set them. If you absolutely need to set one, write about how you plan to handle it in Love if you don't hit it.2. Punishment and beating yourself up have no place in loving New Years resolutions. When you don't meet or exceed your expectations, be gentle on yourself. Shaming ourselves has never brought us back to Love. Instead ask: What can I learn from this?3. If things don't go as planned, you're doing it right. While we can set strategies all day every day, life happens. We can either let it crumble us, or choose to go with the flow and let it nudge us back on the path we're meant to be on. Let yourself be guided.I wish you clarity, strength and courage in your journey. If you have any questions, please leave comments below or tweet me!Stay strong (and open),Amy