New Year, New Intentions

Who do you plan to be in the coming year? Are you making plans to be a new and improved version you? Do you plan to be more thoughtful and less stressed? Healthier? Happier?

What do you plan to accomplish? Do you plan to eat better and exercise more or maybe spend less time with the TV remote in your hand and more time with a book in your hand? Maybe you plan to run a marathon, write a book, or take a class?

What kind of attitude and outlook do you plan to have? Are you planning to be more joyful, more loving, and more appreciative of your sweetie? Are you planning to look for the bright side of life?

It is easy to wrap up one year by making grand plans for the year to come, but it is ever so difficult to make those plans real as the new year unfolds and the hectic pace of daily life picks up after the holidays. We get bogged down in the day-to-day and lose track of our dreams of healthier and happier living. Our intentions are good when we make  resolutions to change, but memories of those intentions fade as life gets busy.

Then you end up feeling stupid and dumb and weak for not transforming your lofty plans into reality. You feel like a big letter L—for loser—or F—for failure—should be tattooed on your forehead. Then maybe you eat some cake, sulk, and feel sad and mad—turning to the bad habits you wanted to concur for comfort.

I’ve got another plan for you:

1. Don’t make an unachievable list of things you resolve to do or not do, be or not be, accomplish or avoid, in the coming year.

2. Do intend to be more intentional during any given moment.

The idea of New Year’s Resolutions is so overwhelming that most people don’t make them and most of the people that make them break them.

Instead of making that list of future failings, I suggest that you make yourself a little sign that says, “Be More Intentional”. Heck, make a bunch of them. Hang one on the inside of your medicine cabinet or on the bathroom mirror. Put one next to your credit card and checkbook. Put one on the corner of your computer monitor and one on the corner of the TV screen. Put one on the door to the refrigerator or the container of ice-cream. Put a “Be More Intentional” sign everywhere you might need to see one.

Once that is done, do your best to make thoughtful decisions in any given moment.

All of our actions start with an intention, a thought. The problem is that it is very easy to put our thinking on autopilot. We want to feel better so we reach for the ice-cream because ice-cream makes us feel good. We want to relieve stress so we veg-out in front of the TV because that calms us and takes the edge off. This auto-pilot thinking leads to bad habits.

What we need to do to bring about real change is to really think about the choices we are making as we make them. This intentional thinking will change your internal dialog from something like this “I’m sad. I want ice-cream” to something like this “I’m sad. Ice-cream would make me feel better right now, but when I see myself naked in front of the bathroom mirror later I will feel worse. What else would make me feel better...maybe I’ll go for a walk.”

Investing time in moment-by-moment thoughtfulness leads to better decisions. Over time those good decisions accumulate and add up to big change. Actively thinking about your intentions instead of running on autopilot can actually help reprogram neural pathways and create new, healthier habits.

This process takes practice and is not always easy. There will be times when you choose the ice-cream, and that is OK, ice-cream is yummy.

In the end, most of us are not trying to be perfect, we are just trying to be a bit healthier, a bit happier, a bit less stressed, and a bit more joyful. In my experience, this process has been a more successful tool for affecting change than a list of rigid resolutions.