New Beginnings Start With Intention, And Last With Habit
ONLY 4% of individuals successfully keep their New Year resolutions after June. Just 6 months into the year.
Well that is at least half of the year, it is better than nothing, right? Sure, that's right! But if you want to make a lasting change to your life you are going to have to be consistent in your time, energy, and actions.
Potential reasons as to why such a low level of resolutions are kept throughout the ENTIRE year and beyond, could be a lack of intention & habit.
Intention = Plan
Intention refers to how you plan to conduct your time, energy, and actions, after having defined the goals you want to achieve. Being intentional with these aspects, will increase your productivity towards your goals. You can do this by being deliberate with how you plan and proceed throughout the day.
A specific technique that you can use to help you move through life intentionally is called: implementation intention. This enables you to change your behaviour, by planning a ‘if I am doing this, then I will do this’ situation and then acting on it when the situation arrives. An example, of this is : ‘when I come home from doing the weekly shop; I will go for a walk’.
Intention does not only help you focus on your goals, but it also shows you how to appreciate people you have in your life, by being mindful of your most important relationships. You also experience an increase in self-awareness and abundance, due to understanding why your most important relationships are significant to you. This awareness and gratitude only helps improve your wellbeing and life.
New Year Resolutions To New Year Intentions
Around the end of the year, we make new year resolutions, to set goals for the following year. For the most part they are inspiring. However, the most common new year resolutions I hear are: I want to lose weight and spend less money.
A lot of people will hear these and think “Good for you, you want change!”. However, the underlying message I hear behind them are: ‘I don’t like my body’; ‘I don’t love my body’; ‘I can’t afford it’; or even worse ‘I do not love myself as I am’.
You see, with some individual’s their new year resolutions are born out of a place of lack, where for example they think ‘If I lose weight, I will be able to accept and love myself’. What makes you think that losing weight will result in true contentment? I’ll save you the time... it won’t!
This may not be entirely true for all individuals in this situation, but for most this is evidence as to how they are operating in a mode of conditional love. As Louise Hay put it: ‘You’ve been criticising yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens’.
Therefore, a lot of new year resolutions (associated with diet culture specifically) have this negative underlying thought or belief of: ‘I am not pretty enough’ or ‘I am not slim enough’. And some of you may turn around to me and say ‘Well, Sammi these beliefs are my motivation, I won’t do it otherwise’.
The power of thoughts, words, and self-compassion come into play here. I am not saying that you shouldn’t have these aims. I am saying that re-phrasing your resolutions with intention (with the best version of yourself in mind) is a kinder way to approach oneself.
Let's flip these resolutions into positive rooted intentions. So:
‘I want to lose weight because I feel less worthy when I am not slim’
Becomes:
‘I want to look after my body by eating nourishing foods that make me feel good and do exercise that I enjoy, because I respect and love my body’
‘I want to spend less money, because I don’t earn enough’
Becomes:
‘I will start a side hustle, to help me live the life I want to lead’
These intentions will motivate you towards a new beginning, because there is a goal that you have stated you want to achieve. In order to succeed consistently, however, healthy, positive habits must be formed.
If you are interested in how to set powerful intentions using meditation, follow the link to Deepak Chopra’s website: https://chopra.com/articles/5-steps-to-setting-powerful-intentions