Build Your Routine for 2015 Setting an Intention

For the next 21 days, I’ll share a new post to help you build your routine for 2015. Developing healthy habits doesn’t happen overnight, and there are a lot of considerations to take into account when you commit to living healthy and well.

What I’m not going to tell you is how to be healthy and well. It’s up to you to determine what that looks like for your lifestyle. I will share are tips, resources, exercises, and ideas that you can integrate into you life no matter what healthy habit you’re trying to create.

Day 1: The Difference Between Goals, Resolutions, and Intentions

When you set a goal, you’re trying to achieve something in the future. When you make a resolution you’re trying to change something about your self or your life. But when you set an intention, you’re committing to being a certain way. There is still a change, but it’s more subtle. It’s less about doing and more about feeling.

An intention is deeper then the superficial layers of goal-setting and resolutions. It comes from the heart rather then the mind. An intention is something you really, really want and there often isn’t an immediately clear or concrete way to achieve it. Goals and resolutions tend to sound good to the mind but have less pull on the heart.

Intentions ground you. Goals may motivate you. Resolutions normally weigh you down. There is an energetic difference between all three.

Achieve Long-Term Change and Transformation

Setting an intention is not an excuse to cheat or to slack off. In fact, setting an intention forces you to operate from a different space internally in everything you do. If you set a goal to lose weight, you might have to go to the gym for an hour every day to achieve that goal, but when you set an intention to treat your body well, you have to think about every decision you make every day.

Goals and resolutions are short-term. They may end up changing your life forever, but when was the last time you met someone who made it their New Year’s Resolution to lose weight and a) lost the weight + b) kept it off for the remainder of their life?

Intentions are mindful. They encourage you to become more aware of what is going on in your life, what is going on in your body, and what is going on around you. Setting an intention encourages you to make mindful decisions, not because you have to, but because you feel guided to – because you want to. Do you feel the difference?

Day 1 Exercise: Set Your Intention for 2015

Think about any goals that you’ve already set for yourself in 2015, specifically around your health and wellness. Perhaps your goal is baked into your resolution; for example if your resolution is to lose 25 pounds this year, then the goal is to lose 25 pounds and the resolution is to engage in activities that will help you lose 25 pounds. If you haven’t created a goal or resolution for 2015 around health & wellness yet, now’s the perfect time! Remember, health and wellness is about nourishing your body, mind, and soul, not just going on diets and exercising.

Now it’s time to transform your goal or resolution into an intention. Think about what it is that you really want. One way to do this is to continually ask yourself why until you get to the real root of the issue. Why do you want to lose weight? To look better? Why do you want to look better? At this point, you might realize that you want to look better because you think if you lose weight you’ll actually feel better. Maybe it’s not about the way you look, but about the way you feel.

Once you get to the root of the issue, write your intention down somewhere and keep it close, maybe on your bedside table, taped to the bathroom mirror, or hung up on the refrigerator door.

You’re so much closer to creating lasting change, because you just committed to living from the heart.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk more about what it takes to create a habit.

Click here for the next post in this series: How Habits Work.

Share your intentions for 2015 over on the Facebook page to stay accountable!