What are Your Intentions for the New Year?

Instead of setting resolutions, how about setting intentions for the new year instead?

New Year Intentions Instead of Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions have always intimidated me. The probability of success is low and the focus seems to be on giving up bad habits instead of living our best lives.

But I do love the idea of reflection and writing down ways to live with more intention. I’ve noticed that once I put something in writing, it carries more weight and influence.

New Year’s Intention Jar

A few years ago, my family started a tradition – A New Year’s Intention Jar. As December draws to a close, we reflect on the past year and how we’d like to live the year ahead.

Here’s a photo of our jar, decorated by my daughters, sitting on a shelf in our living room.

Having the jar visible, helps us remember our intentions and a few times a year we open the jar and remind ourselves what we wrote.

As New Year’s Day approaches, we’re starting to think about what intentions we might like to set for 2019. We tend to focus on new activities and positive ways of being instead of giving up things.

Here are some examples I gathered from some my family’s past notes:

• Give pets more love
• Be a better friend to X
• Play more music
• Practice compassion to self and others
• Help out more at home
• Don’t care about what others think or say about you
• Practice listening deeply and seeking to understand others
• Continue regular morning yoga practice
• Submit book proposal to editors (this resulted in my book contract!)

On New Year’s Day, we’ll put pen to paper and each write our new intentions. We can share our intentions or keep them private. There are no requirements and no judgment.

Then the jar will be tucked back on the shelf and we’ll begin a new year…with intention.

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