As I grow older, I become more and more weary of New Year’s resolutions. I welcome the “fresh start feeling” of a new year, however, I have learned time and time again that I am part of the 91% of Americans that don’t achieve their resolutions. I have become consistent in many areas of my life, including following a 5-day a week exercise regimen for 26 months (and counting) and completing a 244 day Bible-reading streak in 2022. But I attribute this to putting the necessary systems in place in order to build these habits slowly over time, and not because of the motivation or willpower that often gives New Year’s resolutions their initial boost.
Instead of creating resolutions that fizzle out in a month or believing that a planner or productivity system will save you, let’s reflect on how we can live more intentionally in 2023.
Intentional living and a minimalist lifestyle go hand-in-hand. When you declutter your home, schedule, and emotional and mental clutter, you make decisions through the lens of what is most important. How you spend your most precious resources of money, time, energy, focus, and attention is reflective of your values. When you remove what is blocking you from living in alignment with your values, you naturally live more intentionally. Instead of being a victim to your circumstances, you can make conscious choices and move forward with confidence.
I have been using the Thriving in Motherhood planner for several years to help me with this process. It gives plenty of space for reflection on the previous year and provides insightful questions to help you develop your vision and goals for the new year. Feel free to use the planner of your choice, or simply write your reflections down in a notebook.
1. Reflect on the past year and realize it went better than you thought.
Writing this on December 31, it is easy for me to think about everything I haven’t accomplished in 2022. But I know this negative self-talk isn’t serving me, and that my brain is hard-wired to look at the negative first. So instead, I reflect on everything, big and small, that I accomplished in 2022.
My planner has a review section that I complete at the end of each month, which makes a yearly review much easier. But if you haven’t done monthly reviews up to this point, don’t worry! Here’s a few things you can look at:
- Review your planner or digital calendar for 2022. Make a list of places you visited, activities you participated in, traditions you started, or any other milestones that transpired for you and/or your family members
- Look at your bookshelf or library borrowing history and make a list of the books you read
- Look around your house and reflect on any home improvement projects
- Reflect on work projects, hobbies, or other ways that you spent your time to create lists for Projects Completed and Things I Learned
- Add additional categories to encompass what is most important to you
Once you have reflected on the year in these life “buckets”, think about your accomplishments and challenges in your different life domains. A Google search will bring up numerous lists of life domains, but the planner I use uses ten from Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner: spiritual, intellectual, emotional, physical, marital, parental, social, financial, vocational, and avocational. Where would you like to focus on growing over the next year? Can you jot down some specific examples?
2. Create your vision for 2023.
Creating a vision does not need to be overwhelming or complicated. Think of it as a simple cheat sheet that you can reference on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis to remind of you what’s most important. If you are struggling with where to start, it may be helpful to begin with the end in mind with a simple question: How do I want to be remembered? The “end” can be the end of 2023, the end of January 2023, or the end of your life. When your kids look back at the last month or year, what do you want them to remember about the time they spent with you? What would your spouse or partner say about you? What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?
Or if that question doesn’t speak to you, try: Who do I want to become? What habits do you want to start or stop? What talents or skills do you want to cultivate? Is there a word or phrase that encompasses your focus for the year?
3. Ditch the overwhelm of unattainable goals by focusing on the 3 S’s.
You’ve reflected on 2022 and have casted your vision for 2023. Now what? In order to make your vision a reality, you need to take action. And is action easy? Usually not. This is why resolutions fail – we try to implement way too many new things at a time thinking that somehow a switch will flip between December 31 and January 1 that will give us the time, energy, and focus to cram things we’ve never done before into our already busy lives.
Instead of burning out two weeks into the new year, follow the three S’s:
Small changes. The ideal listener of my podcast Moms Overcoming Overwhelm is (you guessed it) an overwhelmed mom who wants to declutter but can’t find the time or energy. Small, incremental shifts are the name of the game. American culture sticks its nose up at small changes, but they are how habits are developed that transform our lives. One degree changes are all we need to end up in a completely different place. In fact, pilots are taught the “1 in 60” rule which states that after 60 miles a one degree error will cause the plane to be off course by one mile. Put another way, if you aren’t where you want to be with your health, relationships, or business, a course correction of one degree consistently over time will put you on a trajectory to end up closer to where you want to be.
Looking at “one degree” changes of temperature rather than direction, I love the ice cube example given by James Clear in Atomic Habits:
Imagine that you have an ice cube sitting on the table in front of you. The room is cold and you can see your breath. It is currently twenty-five degrees. Ever so slowly, the room begins to heat up. Twenty-six degrees. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. The ice cube is still sitting on the table in front of you. Twenty-nine degrees. Thirty. Thirty-one. Still, nothing has happened. Then, thirty-two degrees. The ice begins to melt. A one-degree shift, seemingly no different from the temperature increases before it, has unlocked a huge change. Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change.
James Clear, Atomic Habits
Small changes, done consistently, lead to big results. If something feels overwhelming, make it so easy (or in this case, so small) you can’t say no.
Systems support goals. Goals are guideposts along the way of us living an intentional life in alignment with our vision and values. There are numerous resources on goal setting, but I recommend developing a system to support your goals. Two of the goals I reached in 2022 were to continue my exercise streak by completing every scheduled workout, and reading the Bible daily. The systems I developed to ensure my success were: setting up my schedule and physical environment (putting non-negotiable time aside and setting out my workout clothes the night before), staying accountable to other people who knew about my goals, and simply not allowing myself to end the streak I was tracking (otherwise known as “don’t break the chain”).
Stop relying on motivation. In January our motivation is at an all-time high. But what about February and beyond? If we want to live with intention and purpose instead of backsliding into reactivity and victim thinking, how do we continue when motivation wanes? It’s one of the greatest mysteries of behavioral change, but here are some tips that have helped me.
- Refer to your vision and remember why you’re doing this in the first place. Your vision (completed in step 2) is your cheat sheet for the year. Go back to it regularly and remember why you are doing what you are doing in the first place. Where do you want to be in a year, and what one degree changes are going to get you there? Stay anchored in what matters, and if you feel overwhelmed, ruthlessly eliminate what doesn’t serve you anymore.
- Root your goals and habits in your identity. James Clear writes about identity-based habits in Atomic Habits: “True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity… Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.” If you focus on who you are becoming rather than simply what you are doing, your actions take on more significance.
- Motivation comes from action, not the other way around. In the last 26 months that I’ve exercised 5 times a week, the number of times I have showed up motivated to work out have been very few. It is 5:30 AM. I stumble into my basement, bleary-eyed. But once I start the warm-up, I’ve done the hard part. I started, and all I have to do is finish. Number of times I’ve regretted working out after I’ve finished: zero. Act yourself into a different way of feeling, because believing that you will feel yourself into a different way of acting is foolish.
Living More Intentionally in 2023 is Attainable
Reflecting on 2022, creating a vision for 2023, and understanding that small, sustainable changes will get you where you want to be may seem too simple. After all, many people will tell us that this planner or this productivity system will transform your life. But intentional living isn’t about the tool we are using, or how many goals we set, or subscribing to a culture of hustle and busy. It is, as Joshua Becker said, “Ask(ing) yourself what is really important and then hav(ing) the courage to build your home and life around that answer.” Let’s go forth into 2023 with the wisdom to know what is important to us, the discernment to know what isn’t, and the courage to build our lives around our answers.
The near year is a perfect time to experiment with less! Download my free guide 5 Experiments for Simple Living to Overcome Overwhelm to learn more!
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