With the new year just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to set your intentions. Intentions are simply promises that you make to yourself or goals that you want to achieve. They allow you to be intentional about how you want the upcoming year to look and feel. Ready to get started? Here’s seven tips for setting your 2020 intentions.
Reflect on the previous year
Before you actually set your intentions for the year, it’s a good idea to spend some time reflecting on the year that just passed. What did you learn? What are you grateful for? What did you do that makes you feel super proud? It’s important to celebrate all your wins—big and small. Also, acknowledge and appreciate the challenges you may have come across because they helped you grow into the person you are now.
Create a ritual out of it
Turn your intention setting process into a special occasion. Carve out some dedicated quiet time in your calendar. Light candles. Play some music. Take a bath and pop on a sheet mask. Do whatever you need to do to get yourself into a high-vibe headspace. You can also take yourself out of your normal environment and head to the beach or somewhere in nature if you need some added inspiration.
Journal it out
Writing down your intentions is very powerful. Treat yourself to a nice notebook and do some free writing to help you gain clarity around what you want to bring into your life or accomplish in the coming year. Allow yourself to dream big here. Don’t hold anything back. Just get it all down on paper. Once you’re done, read through it and highlight the most important things you want to focus on for the year.
Set intentions for all areas of your life
Be sure to set intentions for every area of your life such as health, career, personal growth, and relationships. For example, intentions for health could include eating healthy, drinking more water, stepping up your self-care, and switching over to more natural lifestyle products such as skincare and organic pads and tampons.
Ask yourself how you want to feel
Often we chase after external things because we think it’s going to make us feel a certain way once we have them. So a good way to reverse engineer your goals is by getting clear on how achieving it is going to make you feel. Then you can set that feeling as your intention, whether it’s more joy, abundance, fulfillment, or something else.
Detach yourself from the outcome
Think of intentions as seeds that you plant. Worrying about a seed isn’t going to make it grow any faster. The same goes for intentions. So once you’ve set them, let them go. Detach yourself from the end result and trust that what is meant for you will find you. This also includes letting go of all the details and not obsessing over how something is going to come to fruition.
Sum up your intentions into single words
Once you’ve gotten clear on your intentions for the year, sum them up into one to three words. Maybe it’s compassion, freedom, and vibrancy. Or perhaps you’re craving more joy, confidence, and community. Then you can make these your mantras for the year. Meditate on them. Write them on sticky notes and place them around your home. Use them as your guiding light throughout the year.