New Year’s Resolution or Intention?

The burning question, why use the word resolution as opposed to intention? Resolution is defined as the solution, accommodation, or settling of a problem. Intention is defined as an act or instance of determining mentally upon some action or result. Is it me, or does it seem like one is focused on the past, what is wrong with me or it calls us to stop doing something in particular and the other is focused on the future, where I want to put my attention.

Do you ever notice some New Year’s resolutions, usually stem from a “should”, whereas I think intentions stem from something I want to create. I should lose weight, I should stop smoking or I should exercise more. I hate ‘shoulds’, for me it feels like just another way to make myself feel bad or guilty about something I’m doing. On the other hand, having an intention to be healthier (whatever that looks like, adding more veggies or having only one glass of wine, as opposed to three) or the intention of exercise can look like “I will move my body once a week”, thinking like this can really open the world up and it really just plants a seed to live your life moving towards something instead of taking away something.

The other potential disaster about resolution and those ‘shoulds’ is in timing. Everyone wants to start something the 1st of the year (even though it’s really not the New Year, but that’s another conversation), when there is a situation that arises and a choice is made that doesn’t concur with the resolution, all bets are off and we wind up feeling like we failed. Inside of intention, you have the whole year to find the balance between failure and success, and because the intention was created in an open ended way, there is really no room to fail anyway.

So, why am I writing about resolution and intention 16 days after the New Year. Because the reality is that some of you have probably already had challenges, so here’s permission to start again and keep starting all year long.

I love writing my intentions, I especially get excited when I look at them at the end of the year and to my surprise, almost all of them have been completed. And, if I haven’t completed something, that tells me either, I really didn’t want to achieve it or it just goes onto my list for next year. I had a trip to India on my list for three years, before it was complete, there’s that timing thing again.

And keep in mind, intentions can be anything from “I will meet the man of my dreams” (Ahem, that’s been on my list for more than three years!), “I will double my income”, “I will spend more time with my family”,”I will learn Spanish”, “I will start to write a book” or “I will be in Hawaii by year’s end”. So, plant those seeds and operate from a place of growth and abundance. So, what are your intentions for the year of 2017? Have fun!