The most popular thing to do at New Years (besides drinking champagne) is probably to Make Resolutions. You tell yourself, your friends and your family (and if you’ve overdone it on champagne, perfect strangers!) that next year you’ll do it DIFFERENTLY. Next year, you really are going to lose those extra 20 pounds, even if you have to starve yourself to do it.
For a time you stick to your plan. You diet, you join the gym and you lose some weight. Somewhere between Valentine’s Day and June, you lose your momentum. Summer rolls around and you beat up on yourself for not sticking to the diet and you dread putting on a swimsuit. Somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas you realize you really did eat that whole plate of cookies and you swear to fast until New Years so you don’t end the year without losing a single pound!
Now it’s New Years Eve and you hate the sense of failure to meet your “resolution”, so you try to muster up some confidence to try again next year. (Maybe this contributes to the amount of champagne consumed on New Year’s Eve!)
Instead of making resolutions, what if you Set Intentions for 2009? Intentions are the “purpose or attitude toward the effect of one’s actions or conduct.” When we set intentions, we give ourselves guiding principles by which to make choices in line with our values. It is a meaningful and powerful way to live. So rather than make a potentially doomed resolution for an arbitrary goal like losing 20 pounds, you may want to set an intention like “I intend to create and enjoy a healthy life style.” With this intention serving as your guide for moment-by-moment choices about food, exercise and self-care, you won’t feel forced to starve yourself or beat yourself up when you get off the plan. And the results may astound you. You’ll find you have a much better chance of losing those extra pounds because real success is a result of mindful living and mindful choices in line with your intentions.
Sounds simple? It is! Living with intention is mindful livig, based in both commitment and gentleness. Treat yourself with kindness, compassion and love while staying true to your values and principles, and at the end of the year, or anytime, you will be celebrating true success – a life lived well!
Set your Intentions for 2009! Join Brook Montagna, Personal Life Coach, Professional Coach, and Spiritual Life Coach, for Ring In 2009! – a tele-workshop that will set the tone for the entire year to come. Ring In 2009! will be guide you through creating a powerful vision for 2009, clarifying your intentions, and creating mindfulness practice and meaningful action plans that align with your values and inner truth. We will examine ways to move with self confidence toward success as you define it. Register now and you’ll get FREE access to the Wring Out 2008! tele-workshop archived on the web!
Date & Time: Tuesday, January 6, 4 PM Pacific Time.
Brook Montagna, Mindfulness Coach & Spiritual Life Coach
2 Comments
My intention that I’ve set for 2009 is for a peaceful, joyful, healthful experience of life — with lots more FUN!!! I had a wonderful “spreading of the 2008 ashes” ceremony on January 1st, 2009. I journeyed through the high snow in the back of my yard, chipped away at the ice on my compost bin lid and it finally opened……held the beautiful raku-ed container of ashes close to me and meditated over them — raised them to the cloud cover, (cause I just know there’s a Sun up there – somewhere) – said my goodbye’s and dumped them into my compost bin with all my vegetable trimmings and red wiggler worms. Oh how I will enjoy eating the vegetables that I will grow in my garden this year, with the “black gold” created by my red wigglers and the ashes of my past year (give a little fibre to my worms).
The cycle of life is truly miraculous.
I got my Divorce papers and my divorce will be final on January 5th, 2009. My gratefulness is felt in my heart every single moment that I experience peace and joy around me now.
This is great, Laura! I just love the image of those composting worms chewing up past dramas and negative beliefs and converting them into present nurturance for what you REALLY want to grow (and glow) in your life this year. And that compost pile is there for you anytime you want to let go and let those “GLOW WORMS” do their spiritual work!