Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
I look forward to January ending but I also enjoy setting a myriad of goals as one year transitions into another.
I long ago gave up on New Years Resolutions as a way to motivate my own growth towards being the best version of myself. I think it's something about the definition of resolve: "decide firmly on a course of action" that doesn't ring true to me. You see, I'm not a firm decider of many things. I LOVE and ADORE optionality. I like exploration, curiosity, and experimentation. So, deciding firmly on a course of action is rarely my cup of tea.
My recent goal to rearrange my home office a perfect case in point. The specific goal I wrote on my "100 list" for the year and which I assigned to get traction in the first quarter of the year was "Decide on new office setup". I planned. I took detailed measurements of the room. I made scale drawings of the space and made scale models out of pieces of index card of the furniture pieces that would be staying as well as the potential furniture pieces I was pre-shopping/shopping for online.
I prototyped a couple of different arrangements of the room using existing office furniture and a few pieces borrowed temporarily from other places in the house.
Once I decided on what I was going to purchase, I made my purchases and still had some wiggle room in my actual decision making. Based on measurements there were actually two different ways the furnishings could be put together in the space. The current iteration is the one I thought would be my second favorite but actually turned out to be the better option in reality. Will I potentially move things around again? Certainly. But at least for now, this is the setup I'm slowing moving things back into. I'm evaluating each piece and part to decide whether it really deserves a home in this space.
Overall, I wouldn't get anything done if I didn't set a wide array of goals and intentions in that space between Christmas and New Years each year. So, this year I have three different types of lists - which absolutely have lots of overlap between them - to keep me motivated and moving - AND to serve as a basis for inspiration of what I was thinking about and looking ahead to during that special week between the holidays - a time when nothing truly pressing was happening and my brain could just think and dream and run free.
Those three lists are:
My 23 in 2023 list - this is inspired by a practice suggested by a listener on Gretchen Rubin's podcast Happier. I along with myriads of listeners of the podcast have been doing this practice ever since then. This year, I focused this list on growing in areas that are important to me but that I don't often take the appropriate amount of time for. These include things like reading, cooking, my dog Kona, relationships, self-care, and play.
My 23 23's in 2023 list. This is a new list for me this year and was inspired by Bullet Journaler and YouTuber Jashii Corrin. Things on this list include things like 23 days of journaling each month and try 23 new restaurants or new to me dishes at existing restaurants this year. That last one especially has been a fun way to reconnect with friends in the new year, be a tourist in my own hometown and cross off this goal.
Finally, I've always come up with way more ideas for things to do in a year than just 23 (or whatever the particular year number was in that year). And, so this year, also inspired by Corrin's YouTube Channel, I added a "100 list" - a list of 100 things that I might want to do in the year. I then divided these by quarter so that they corresponded roughly to my own Quarterly Review process.
So, while I don't make resolutions per se I love having a multitude of ideas and options to choose from and inspire me as I go about the year. Is it too much? Perhaps it is. Because my overall intention for the year is to improve my health in all ways and I'm not actually devoting as much energy to that as I should be. That said, for now I'm just calling January an extension of 2022 and giving the year a new fresh start with February so we're on day 2 and in that regard I'm doing great!
In what ways do you record all of your ideas, dreams, and plans? Do you like concrete goals or do you prefer to leave yourself more room to explore as you create a new reality for yourself in a small area of your life?
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🗓️It is NEVER too late to make lists of dreams and goals - and my quarterly retreat workshop offers a great way to do just that. From my free workbook to the super affordable annual pass option which includes office hours and coworking sessions this is a fantastic way to add periodic reviews into your life with a sense of community and collaboration.
A version of this story was also published on Medium. You can view my Medium profile and see all of the stories I publish there at https://medium.com/@iwannabemewhenigrowup.