It’s Time to Set Your Intentions for 2020
Give yourself permission to grow.
New Year’s Resolutions don’t work. So, I stopped making them years ago.
Making a grandiose or several grandiose proclamations in the form of a New Year’s resolution adds too much pressure, doesn’t allow enough time for a change, which is why resolutions usually fail.
If you haven’t been working toward a significant change in small incremental steps over time, don’t expect it to happen overnight.
You are just setting yourself up for failure.
The chances of success to change a habit overnight are low unless you’ve been laying the groundwork to accomplish a particular essential goal all year round with specific action.
You aren’t going to magically be a different person on January 1 than you were on December 31 and resolve overnight to change an undesired trait or behavior to improve your life.
There is a reason the crush of people in the gym on January 2 dwindles significantly come February 15.
It would be great if we could instantly be different overnight. Snap our fingers and change. I would tell myself to stop eating sugar, and bam, that spoonful of Chocolate Chocolate Chip Häagen-Daz ice cream would never meet my lips again.
But that’s not how most humans operate.
However, setting intentions now, for the new year ahead is beneficial to you and your goals.
There is a reason the crush of people in the gym on January 2 dwindles significantly come February 15.
Make a list — several actually.
These may seem like easy questions, with easy answers. However, putting thought into answering them will clarify what you desire for a more fulfilling life in 2020.
Intend them.
Give yourself permission to grow in any or all areas — personal, professional, lifestyle, health, family. And then, write them out. Write. Them. Down.
Writing goals on paper is crucial because it serves as a reminder of what you want and helps bring your vision into a clearer reality by seeing it on paper.
Put them above your desk. Look at your answers every day.
1. What are two to five new things you would like to learn this year? Learning and having new experiences keeps you young. Learning keeps your mind engaged and the synapses firing. My answer:
- Take a coding class
- Learn to tango (I’ve always had a desire to tango, it’s time)
- Learn how to use Lightroom
- Design a system to organize and store my photos online, on an app, and on at least two external hard drives
2. What are two to five things you want to accomplish in your professional life? My answer:
- Double my writing output
- Take another writing class
- Write an ebook
- Sell a product
- Create a brand
3. What are three to five things you are willing to do to be more connected to your loved ones? My answer:
- Strengthen the bonds I have with good friends by making an effort to see them more, have more honest conversations and make my friends more of a priority
- Include my daughter in my business; she’s been taking an interest in what I do and asking to be a part of it. She is an artist and could be an asset to my work.
- Call my parents every Sunday to chat. Let go of how they weren’t perfect parents. Their shortcomings have nothing to do with me.
4. What accomplishments are you most proud of from the past year? My answer:
- I started writing on Medium as another stream of income
- Writing every day since the summer
- Making money from writing
- Creating another blog
- I’ve let go of taking things personally with family. They are who they are; I’m who I am. This shift was the most liberating change from 2019. I suspect it has something to do with working it out through writing.
5. What one word will you carry with you this year that represents you and the year ahead for you? My answer:
- Empowerment
6. What do you want your life to look like a year from now? Or what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Determining the rest of your life starts with identifying what the next year will look like, and so on.
Start with the coming year, and be detailed about it.
My answer: (the abridged version)
I want more of the same, only bigger.
A year from now, I will support myself from writing alone. I will have another stream of passive income from the blog I started in 2019. I will travel more and write while I’m traveling abroad. I will have the same great friends, maybe more, and I will keep coming into my power.
And I’ll be driving a navy Tesla.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering Type A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.
