Back in July I took down my year’s goals and ripped them up – not out of frustrating or anger – but because they simply didn’t reflect what was going on in my current personal and working life. What I’d envisaged for myself 7 months prior, was now radically out of date. And on reflection, everyone’s plans for 2020 probably had to be ripped up and started again.
I’ve been doing this for decades, considering what my annual focus for myself and my business should be, and then creating clear goals that I could then put a tick or cross against come the end of the year. If I were to be honest with myself and you, there were often more crosses than ticks. But being someone who gets pushed by an inner high achiever, I would always believe that I really needed that stretch and never considered that really, I was setting myself to fail.
This year, as the saying goes, has ‘been like no other’ and one that in many ways has invited us to reinvent ourselves whether embracing the grey, learning a new instrument, relishing our family time, or adopting a new fitness regime. This life pause has exposed what actually we really relish in and what we could live without. It’s given us an opportunity to clear out our cupboards, our sheds as well as old ways of thinking.
So how does all this relate to having an intention for 2021? I had started 2020 with a ‘statement of intent’ to ‘Just Leap!’ something that would be my guide for the year, allowing whatever opportunity or challenge to be measured by that year’s intention. What I realised back in July was that whilst my goals were no longer valid my intention for the year had remained the same. This year I had taken the leap into training opportunities, leapt into delivering webinars for 200 plus people and finally leapt into exploring learning platforms for blended training for my business (something I’d been thinking about for over a year).
Trainers and therapists have known for years that to create a lasting change or to have an instant success, our unconscious mind has to ‘feel the emotions’ first, see the image second and hear the words lastly (in percentage terms 60%, 30% and 10%). When we take time to set a new intention for the year, we not only hear the words but can often picture what that year could look like and also how that would make us and others feel. To our unconscious mind this is full permission to search for any opportunity that matches that criteria, to take full advantage of them even when we are doing something else.
So, this year, my New Year’s intention will be to find an intention only, to not create an unachievable list of personal and professional goals, and instead to be guided by what I whole-heartedly intend to do. By taking time to visualise how this intention could look by imagining the inspired learning will help me not only see it but feel how it could be possible. It looks like next year still holds lots of uncertainties for many of us, so instead of creating a short or long list of goals, why not create a one word or short statement of intent. I am and I’d love to hear what your intention for 2021 is going to be – get in touch and share your intention.