Set Your Intentions for 2021 with These Questions
Ask yourself these questions and reevaluate your systems.
You may be thinking, it isn’t even Halloween yet. It is way too early to start thinking about 2021. But if you lay the groundwork now to accomplish a particular goal, your chances of success will increase exponentially.
Before you know it, pumpkins will turn into pumpkin pie, you’ll be scrambling to get your annual holiday card sent and rushing to buy that one last present the week before Christmas.
It is exactly the time to think about goals for 2021 before the crush of the holidays and the to-do lists take over your time.
Tiny habits compound over time.
If you don’t choose your habits to get to a better life, you’ll pick up bad habits by default.
Set intentions for the coming year
Get clear first
So many of us don’t lack motivation; we lack clarity.
When we aren’t clear about our essential tasks, the nonessential tasks take over.
What is it that you really want? Figure out what you want and then get clear on your plan.
What do you want your life to look like one year from now?
One way to set your intentions is to think about what you want your life to be like one year from January 1, 2021.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions because they tend to last only until Valentine’s Day.
You can’t magically change a habit over night, willpower is unreliable. What is most effective is thinking about what one or two changes you’d like to see at the end of the year. Write down specific steps to implement that change and then develop a system to support that goal.
Systems are the way to better habits.
Do you want more free time? To start a meditation practice? Do you want to write a book? Do you want to work from home? Do you want to travel more? Do you want a larger nest egg or a bigger emergency fund?
Write it down. When you write goals on paper, you become clear on the goal.
Year-end review. Reflect on the previous year
If you don’t know what you want your life to look like a year from now, perform a year-end review on the past year, and you will get a better idea of what you want to change.
Reflection on the previous year’s successes and failures will help you refine and improve your systems and habits.
If we don’t reflect on what went poorly in the past, it is easier to remain in denial or make excuses about why we don’t have the lives we want.
Some questions to ask yourself
- What went well this year
- What didn’t go as planned
- Why didn’t that goal or plan go as intended
- How can I change my behavior so that I stick to my habits
- How can I refine the habit
Performing an annual review is not just learning where your system failed you; it’s about fine-tuning the system, making it better to support the life you want.
I kept saying I was a writer but not until I came up with a system and fine-tuned my habits was I able to show up to my writing desk every day to become a writer.
James Clear simplifies this idea brilliantly in his book Atomic Habits.
- Decide the type of person you want to be.
- Prove it to yourself with small wins.
He gives this simple example:
Who is the type of person who could write a book?
“It’s probably someone who is consistent and reliable. Now shift from writing a book (outcome-based) to being the type of person who is consistent and reliable (identity-based).”
You can apply this to any goal.
Turning the goal into a habit
If your goal is to lose 30 pounds, be a person who is consistent and reliable and shows up to the gym.
Make showing up to the gym as easily as possible.
For example, don’t pick a gym that isn’t on your way to work or on the way to your kid’s school (if you drive them as I do). Don’t pick a gym 20 miles in the other direction from all your other routes and activities. Pick one you will pass every day.
You are making the habit as doable as possible by picking the right system to support the habit. Less friction, the easier the habit.
I fine-tuned my writing habit until it got me sitting at my desk. My system is better than it was the first year I started writing and blogging, and I’ll improve after my year-end review of 2020.
We all need persistence, willpower, and grit to succeed, but creating an environment that supports your habits will create a disciplined lifestyle and help you reach your goals.
What this means for the writer is removing all distractions and prioritizing the writing habit. For the person who wants to lose 20 pounds, it means setting out your workout clothes each night, buying lots of vegetables and fruits to snack on, and being careful about who you hang out with. According to research, “a person’s chances of becoming obese increased by 57 percent if he or she has a friend who became obese.”
Less friction, less procrastination
The greater the resistance to doing something, the less likely you will perform the task.
If you want to minimize procrastination, reduce the friction.
Procrastination is when you have an essential task to do, a task that, when you do it, adds value to your identity — who you want to be — and you put it off. Procrastination isn’t good for us because we want to get the task done; we want to add value to our lives and work.
Accomplishing the task reinforces the identity that we say is important to us — it is essential to our core values. But the task may be difficult or dull, so we put it off.
When you minimize resistance to the task — putting out your sneakers, dressing in workout clothes first thing in the morning, you lessen the friction or resistance. Think of it this way, you are taking the debate (thought) out of whether or not to exercise. By putting on your clothes each morning to work out, you’re saying to yourself, this is what is happening. I’m working out today at the predetermined time. There are no excuses; I have my clothes on. I no longer have to debate with myself that I’m working out.
Lessening the resistance. When excuses pop up, like, I’m tired. I’ll work out tomorrow. It is too cold out. I’ll just take off today and curl up on the couch and binge Netflix, you are less likely to succumb to the excuse because you already decided to work out when you put the workout clothes on.
You have to implement a system to win at anything.
Implementation intention
I first learned about implementation intention in James Clear’s book Atomic Habits.
Implementation intention is simply a plan you make beforehand about when and where to act. “That is, how you intend to implement a particular habit.”
Implementation intention is,
“When situation X arises, I will perform Y.”
Studies have shown that implementation intention is useful for sticking to our goals. Those who made a specific plan for when and where they will perform a task are more likely to follow through.
Saying out loud, “I’m going to write more,” or “I’m going to lose weight,” will not get you to your goal. You can’t rely on inspiration or motivation to strike — those fickle friends come and go. They aren’t reliable.
Instead, do this. I suggest writing it down.
- Writing: I will write for one hour a day at 7:00 am at my desk with my headphones on and my phone in another room.
- Exercise: I will exercise for 45 minutes at 6:00 pm at my gym.
- Relationship: I will make my partner his hot lemon water and apple cider vinegar drink at 7:00 pm and give him a kiss when I give it to him.
- Family: I will call my mom on Sundays at 4:00 pm.
- Meditation: I will meditate for 20 minutes at 6:00 am.
When you don’t have specific goals, you allow other distractions to fill your days. But when you are clear about how your minutes are spent each day and what you’re doing with those minutes, you are less likely to be distracted by things you would rather say no to.
With repetition, you will get the urge to do the right thing at the specific time you set for doing them. These small wins will add up to a life that reflects your values.
Simplified
- Get clear
- Set the intention
- Year-end review
- Write it down
- Make a plan
- Develop a system
- Implementation intention
And then, my friend, what you’ll have there is a habit. Repeat for another habit and goal you want to accomplish.
But you must start with the intention. If you don’t start with intention, planning, and forethought, you won’t be able to implement the other steps, and a year from now, you’ll be in the same place you are today.
More inspiration…
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.