What do you feel in your body when you hear the question
“What are your goals for the new year?”
Maybe you feel motivated, excited, overwhelmed, maybe even…
lost.
You might feel excited because you are just so ready to put 2023 behind you and move on. Or, you might feel overwhelmed because you haven’t had time to catch a breath and think about the year ahead.
For me, asking myself "What are my new year’s goals?” never worked. While it may have motivated me for a bit, come March- I am left discouraged, leaving me giving up on my goals. More importantly, making new year’s goals had more to do with the satisfaction of a check-list than a commitment to living a life I can be happy about.
Of course there is time and space to make lists as a tool to help us stay focused and organized. But, a life run by lists is only that- a list.
how to be more than a to-do list
So then how shall we live, what might be an alternate to new year’s goals/plans/resolutions?
Some people set intentions, some people pick a word to live by for the year. Something I have started to do in 2022 is answering this one question-
“what is important to me?”
The problem with goals and plans is that it’s limiting. Many of our brains automatically go towards thinking about work or another area of our lives that is the most pressing. But, when we consider what’s important to us, we are more likely to consider our lives as a whole- from relationships to work to health to money to hobbies to dreams…etc.
Considering what’s important helps us to zoom out before we can zoom in. And zooming out brings clarity of what are lives are made of -
more than a to-do list.
So, what is important to me?
my health. And part of staying healthy is laughing more. I know that sounds silly, but I want to laugh more this year.
I went ice skating for the first time and you can see in the first photo, I was terrified. I used the walker for most of our time there and with the cheering from my family, I managed to skate several rounds on my own, and I got to laugh. We laughed together.
Even for this one week try it out. Ask yourself-
“what is important to me this week?”, or “What is important to me in this season?” and do just ONE thing towards it,
no matter how seemingly small or silly it may appear to others.
What would one day of setting aside your to-do list show you?
love,
kyunghee
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