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No resolutions – is that okay?

As 2018 turned to 2019, I wrote this and said:

Not every year is a growing year; this was a cocooning year for me, to nourish my soul, process, weave the loose ends back in, reflect on and reconnect with and rediscover things I already am and have and know, and listen to a lot of silence. I don’t value “progress” or “productivity” at any expense – I know we each only get one too-short shot at this life, and I have to live a life that’s true and beautiful to me. I hope you’re doing the same, and I hope you can do it still deeper or brighter or louder or more richly in the new year.

So, no resolutions, really, for 2019 – just a promise to myself to be very, very, very present in every moment, despite the hard work it took to arrive there. In fact, and in hindsight, my resolutions for 2018 weren’t all that grand, either: stop scrolling, stop settling, and just do it. Some gentle mindset shifts.

And 2020?

I just don’t think I have any resolutions for 2020, either.

If 2018 was a cocooning year, 2019 was a walk on a tightrope that turned into a Roman road. I faced wilds I never knew existed and made it back from the wild rumpus to discover, like Max, that my plate of dinner was somehow still warm.

In other words, it was life. It was raw, it was uncontrollable, it was highs and lows, and I didn’t feel a need to set any big goals other than To Be. I set out to grow into brand new things, thorny brambles of discomfort, and they were so new that I couldn’t possibly have imagined what goals to set for myself other than to Do My Best.

But did I set small goals?

Each and every week!

I set goals each week for what I would accomplish in my workouts, in my meal planning and grocery shopping, in my work, in my personal growth, and in each of the other hats I wear. They weren’t always the right goals, and they didn’t always get done, but I wrote them down in my planner and reviewed them at the end of each week, writing down:

  • what worked
  • what improved
  • what needed to change, and how
  • and what needed to carry over to the next week, if anything

Goals aren’t magic, and it didn’t always feel great to see the same things remain incomplete (hi, blogging) week after week. Tracking goals does produce good data, though, and it helped me see where I needed to tighten my time management and adjust my expectations of how far I could stretch my daily hours.

No new year’s resolutions for 2020?

There are things I am working on, but I am happy with the path that every area of my life is taking. The studio is on its way, my health and fitness are on their ways, respectively, and all my various personal hats are on their ways. I have new ways to approach creating new content for this space and my other online spaces after failing 50 different ways over the last 18 months or so, because I learned small things from each of those attempts and became more honest with myself each time I tried something that didn’t work.

I did find a word for this year, though, or at least for January, or this first week. I’ve stopped time-boxing myself for things that don’t have any time-related consequences as I’ve learned to set only the goals that need setting, so if I ditch “peace” for another word in a few hours or weeks, I’ll easily forgive myself.

I still have schedules, I still have lists, I still have tasks, and I still have goals, but I don’t have any desperate, must-do sweeping overhauls for any aspect of my life. Unless a real haircut counts.

What has it taken to arrive at a place where I don’t feel like I need to make resolutions?

  • Lots of self-reflection, at least weekly
  • Lots of honesty with myself
  • LOTS of small changes, consistently, over the past decade
  • Belief in my own ability to continue to grow and change without turning myself inside out the in pursuit of a life that is Elsewhere – in other words, being very comfortable in my own evolving skin, largely through the first three things on this list

Workouts are a great way to get honest with yourself: you do them or you don’t, you can complete a task or you can’t, you make a measurable change or you don’t.

So if you’re having trouble starting your 2020 challenge, keep it simple and just go for a walk or do some squats and wall push-ups.

It takes a small amount of courage to commit to yourself, but life is short and I promise it will be worth it.

Identify your next tiny change…

…and go make it right now. Then tell me about it. Don’t get swept up in the tides of “life”; grab your oar and live.

Need more help setting goals?

I have something VERY exciting coming up that my clients are getting to experience first, but I’ve also written about goals quite a bit on this blog:

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