How to Set Gentler New Year's Intentions

I used to be someone who set New Year’s Resolutions religiously. When the bell tolled midnight I’d be excited, convinced that this would be the year my life changed. I’d have a shiny new journal at the ready, and all my goals mapped out, ready to begin My Best Year Yet. Starting with a 30-day challenge of some sort, of course.

Part of me loved it. Parts of me still do. The dreaming, the planning, the reflecting on the year past and getting excited about what’s to come. The possibility of it all.

Sometimes this wave of energy would last weeks, I’d be meal prepping and ticking off my habit tracker and writing down my daily gratitude log, and yet, predictably, eventually I’d burn out and all the glistening snowman-like goals I’d built would start to melt and turn to slush. I’d be disappointed. I’d berate myself.

Once I’d licked my wounds I’d start to tell myself that maybe I could try again. I just needed a more optimised plan. I just wasn’t disciplined enough. Dedicated enough. This new app/journal/planner/challenge/accountability system/plan was the missing piece. And off I’d go, again.

If you recognise yourself in this pattern, hello. You’re in good company. Consider my super hard-working Inner Manager waving to yours (or perhaps giving a polite but friendly nod.) These parts of us tend to work in very difficult conditions, against many other parts of us that crave rest, and sweet treats, and ease. It’s a tough job they’ve got, especially in January.

I’m not here to stop them doing the work they love to do. My manager LOVES a shiny new journal and a plan for success, and she’d be gutted if she didn’t have time in January to dream up goals for the year.

This post is here to equip your wonderful inner manager with some new tools, ideas, and a huge dose of gratitude and appreciation. To see if we can make it easier. More enjoyable, aligned, and achievable.

Why January is a Terrible Time to Start Working on Your Goals

Our calendar has tricked us into thinking January is some kind of Grand Beginning. But if we look to nature, in the Northern hemisphere at least, it tells a very different story.

January marks the depths of winter. Everything around us is resting, shedding leaves, preserving energy. Our animal bodies are craving rest, sleep, and warming comfort foods. Yet we somehow convinced ourselves that a season that is made for hibernation, is the perfect time to start Couch to 5K.

This time of year, if we listen closely, is asking us to go inward. To prioritise rest. Warmth. Ease. A much slower pace. Our wonderful inner goal-setters are working not just against the parts of us who want other things, but against our very nature and biology. No wonder we get so burnt out.

How to Set New Year’s Intentions that Work with the Seasons

What if followed nature’s lead and let January be a time to conserve our energy? To reflect on the year past, and to begin dreaming instead of doing.

Imagine yourself sat on a favourite cosy chair by a fire, a warming mug of tea, candles lit, beginning to dream about what the year ahead could hold. That is January’s energy. This is the time to choose which seeds to plant, to begin nurturing the potential within them. Trust that the growing comes later.

Take the time now to slow down, reflect, and plant little seeds. By the time Spring arrives, with its burst of new energy and sunlight, those dreams will begin shooting up through the earth, ready to grow and bloom. It’s then that you will start to see the results of the wintering you allowed yourself to enjoy in the months before.

A New Year’s Intention Setting Practice (A Gentle Alternative to New Year’s Resolutions)

If you’ve read this far, your inner manager might be wondering but what does this look like? What do I actually do? Which is a great, and valid question, especially if this concept feels new or unfamiliar.

I suggest the following practices to support you to find a new way this year.

Get Everything Out

First, allow your inner dreamers, goal setters, and managers, to get out everything they’re thinking. Write it all down. What are the hopes and dreams and goals they have for you this year?

Listen to Your Body’s Response

Take some time to breathe, and reflect on what you’ve written down. See if you can find any patterns, or themes.

Notice what happens inside as you read each one, or imagine yourself doing it. Is there warmth, excitement, or a sense of forward motion? Or is there a contraction, a sinking, a sense of fear or stuckness?

Get Curious About Where They Came From

Get curious about these goals. Why do they matter to you? Where, or from who, did you learn these things were important? What do you imagine would happen if you achieved them? What do you imagine would happen if you didn’t? Are those things true?

Find the Value Beneath the Goals

See if you can tease out the deeper values behind them. Are they focused on health, adventure, relationships, freedom, confidence, something else? What are the deeper desires beneath those surface goals?

Focus on those values or desires that evoke a sense of ease, warmth, or excitement.

Get curious about how you could infuse these values into your life in a way that feels genuinely good to you. Consider what it might be like to build a relationship with these values, rather than a strict set of criteria or rules that you can succeed or fail at.

Give Yourself Space to Change

Allow your intentions space to grow and evolve. There’s nothing wrong with setting yourself a very specific challenge, but perhaps hold in mind that life changes, ebbs and flows, and build in the idea and expectation that you will need to give yourself grace to adapt as you go.

For example, my inner manager wanted to set goals this year around writing. If she had it her way I would have a list of things to achieve: Finish my novel. Publish my Therapeutic Story Collection. Write a blog at least once a month. Reach at least X amount of people.

These are wonderful goals, and I do hope to achieve them, but in reality, they made my system feel rigid, pressured, and anxious. The value underneath it all is connection, and creativity.

So my heart-led, winter friendly writing goal this year is ‘To fall in love with writing again’. 

This gives me space to feel creative, to get excited, to experiment with what makes me genuinely love writing and feel connected. I also have a sneaky suspicion that approaching it this way will actually make me more likely to achieve those original goals, and either way, I'll enjoy the process so much more.

Choose a Word of the Year

Another beautiful way to set intentions at this time of year is to choose a word, or phrase, that can act as a compass or guide for the year. How do you want to feel this year? What value do you want to be led by?

Let Yourself Winter

I hope you can find ways to lean into this season that honour all of you: your hardworking manager parts, your deeply human need for rest and recovery, your fears and doubts, and your optimism and dreaming.

When we make space for all of our many contradictions, funnily enough, life becomes simpler.

So with that, I wish you a simpler January, that tends to every part of who you are.

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If this post spoke to you, I know you’ll love what I have created for us next Saturday. I will be holding a 90-minute space to guide a small group through this process. We’ll get cosy, connect with our inner managers, and find ways to soften, to dream, to plant little seeds we can continue to nurture and grow throughout the year.

As with all of my offerings, it will be gentle, no-pressure, and full of warmth and care. Come along to gift yourself the time to turn inwards, get clear on what you truly want, and begin moving towards it in a way that works for you.

You are warmly invited, and can find all the details here.