2020 Intentions // Part 2
Hello, friends. It’s the last day of January and I am finally getting around to writing Part 2 of my 2020 Intentions series. I believe that it’s very important to take our time when it comes to our goals and intentions for the coming year. Many of us will set a list of “resolutions” on New Year’s Eve without much thought. Then we’ll “try at it” for a week or two, “fail” sometime in the middle of January, and by the time February rolls around, the resolutions are a thing of the past.
That approach seems such a draining waste of time to me which is why I gave it up over a decade ago.
These days, my planning for the year looks much different. Some time in late December/early January I decide on my word of the year. Once that is decided I begin building a set of intentions that will support my vision for the year. Then finally, I break my intentions down into measurable goals. In other words I plan out what I will need to do specifically in order to make those intentions a reality. I ensure that those goals are measurable, so that I can really track my progress and see how far I have come (or failed to come).
You can see a quick example of how I write this out here.
If you’re into journaling/drawing you can get as fancy as you like, or if you’re more of an accountant type, you can create a spreadsheet. The point is to get all of your intentions, goals and habits written down so that you can regularly look at them, keep track, and measure your progress. This way you won’t forget about things.
(I track my goals on a weekly basis and my habits on a daily basis which is why I’ve just started bullet journaling for the first time, but more on that soon.)
This approach is more complex than standard resolution-setting, but in my experience it is also way more effective.
Now let me talk about my 2020 intentions that I shared in my last post.
❉ Get 8 Hours of Sleep a Night
I want to talk about this one first, because it is the most pressing at the moment. Sleep has always been a challenge for me since I was a child. I am an incredibly light sleeper, like I wake at the sound of a sneeze, foot step, or a door gently being closed. On top of that, it takes me about 20-30 minutes to fall asleep. In a household with four children and a partner who has sleep apnea, this can be a recipe for disaster.
Lack of sleep is seriously damaging for me. There are lots of people who can thrive with little or no sleep, I am not one of those people. So figuring this out has been priority one for me. While I can’t control all sleep interruptions, I can ensure that I am at least setting the stage for a solid 8 hours. I’ll do a future post on what that looks like for me, but in the meantime if I have any fellow light sleepers out there and you have any tips for me, please share!
❉ Establish Daily Meditation Practice
❉ Establish Daily Yoga Practice
I am listing these two intentions next because at the moment they are on pause until I get the sleep situation sorted. But they are also a top priority. My plan is to implement these daily practices in the morning before the kids get out of bed. That would be from 6 – 7 am. However, thus far I’ve been so exhausted from poor and broken sleep that I can’t drag myself out of bed until 7. This has to change and I am working on it.
❉ Attend 2 Yoga Classes Per Week
Attending in-person classes is so important for me. The level of workout that I get in a class is so much more powerful (physically and spiritually) than what I get at-home. My in-class practice and my at-home practice are equally important but they have different purposes. At-home is more about setting my vibration for the day and maintaining a consistent practice. In-class practice is more about pushing my body to its limits and being a part of an important-to-me community.
❉ Define Goals for Nutrition
❉ No Animal Meat (Except Eggs)
These next two goals go hand-in-hand and they’re all about food. This could turn into a novel so I won’t get too far into it but I have a few primary goals when it comes to food: eat mostly whole, plant-based food; eat at home 95% of the time, implement a regular meal-planning routine; and avoid meat and dairy, except for eggs from our girls.
❉ Limit Alcohol to Twice a Month
❉ Limit Dining Out to Twice a Month
These two intentions fall within a few categories: nutrition, wellness and budget. Limiting dining out is going to be especially difficult for me, but it is a necessary change. Limiting alcohol will be easier since I eliminated it for several months last year, but I still want to make it a priority going forward. I like to have a couple glasses of wine to relax in the evening, but there are healthier ways of doing it, especially since I am very sensitive to alcohol and even a couple of glasses can leave me with a headache the next morning.
❉ Create 48-Month Business Plan
❉ Get a Part-Time Job
❉ Balance Monthly Budget
❉ Define Savings Goals
❉ Limit Manicures to Special Occasions
This set of goals falls under business and budgeting. They’re all important, but they’re also quite involved and I don’t want to spend too much time on each of these in this post, since I’d like to address them individually in future posts. What I will touch on is getting a part-time job.
“My career” is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. My goal has always been to be a work-from-home mom until my kids were in kindergarten. In September, Marina will start kindergarten. So I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do once that happens. I have a lot of thinking to do on this, but in the meantime I would like to get a part-time job to “get my feet wet,” make extra money, and see how I feel about rejoining the workforce after 7 years working from home.
Limiting manicures is a little thing, but last year I got a gel manicure about every 3 weeks and when I look at the overall time/money spend on that, it doesn’t bring me joy. So I’m going to switch back to at-home manicures for awhile and see how that goes.
❉ Nothing New Project
❉ Define Goals for Sustainable Living
I will do full posts on these two intentions. The “Nothing New Project” is about buying nothing new for the entire year, inspired by Sash Milne. As for sustainability, I’m making lots of personal changes and changes in our home, which I’ll share more about soon.
❉ Weekly Outdoor Adventures
❉ Hike More
❉ Camp More
Last year I had a bunch of big travel goals and I nailed them all. This year an abundance of adventure is still high on my priority list but I want to shift gears from distance travel to local exploration. I want to do A LOT of camping and hiking and of course I’ll be sharing those adventures here as I go.
❉ Learn to Make Pottery
❉ Read 52 Books
These last couple of intentions are desires that I’ve had for a long time. I am hopeful that I’ll get to a pottery class soon. The book goal is a bit of a stretch, but here’s hoping. I am well on my way so far.
Okay, friends. That’s all for this post. I look forward to sharing my progress with these intentions through the year. It is going to be a year of flourishing, indeed. xo