Setting Extreme Intentions in 2021
At some point in 2020, I stopped being cranky. I’m not sure when it happened. I noticed one day that I had stopped blaming other people for all the things. Everything felt a little bit lighter - like I was no longer carrying everyone else’s load.
Although I don’t know when it happened exactly, I do know how it happened.
At the beginning of every year, I do some planning (okay, A LOT of planning; it’s my jam). In January 2020, I set an intention of deeply, radically honoring myself (see here for how to honor yourself). For me, this meant focusing on my life’s foundations. If you want to build a sturdy house, you need a strong foundation.
Last January, I didn’t feel like my foundations were strong enough, so I set out to build better ones: good health routines, practices that nourish me (like nourishing food and relationships), mindful spirituality, solid financial practices, security in my home and work, and cultivating good boundaries to keep the foundation from developing cracks.
Little did I know how much I would need these practices. When the pandemic happened, I realized that my foundation needed to be even stronger because my system was severely taxed. I doubled down on building the foundation. Not without effort; this was really hard work. And it made me very cranky and overwhelmed.
Many times (definitely not every time) when I felt cranky/mad/exhausted/annoyed/exasperated, I asked myself, “Why am I cranky/mad/exhausted/annoyed/exasperated right now?” I often literally put myself in time out for this. I would sit, and breathe, and ask why. Sometimes it was at the end of a day where I had lost my temper a lot, or where something was bugging me but I couldn’t put my finger on it, or when everything seemed really, really hard.
I asked, and asked, and asked. I interrogated my thoughts like the lawyer I am. I asked them to show me the evidence that they were true.
Because here’s the thing (my clients know what comes next): Your thoughts create your feelings and that creates your reactions. It’s a cycle. A thought loop. To get out of it, you have back up and notice how you got into it, which is always a thought.
When you change your thoughts, you change your feelings and your reactions.
It’s MAGIC!
Actually, it’s your brain creating new neural pathways, but it feels like magic!
For example, many of my clients work on stepping more fully into leadership in their jobs. Almost all of them have had to work through thoughts about what they think co-workers think of their work. It goes something like this: “I was in a meeting and my boss said [a neutral-ish statement]. I know she really meant my work isn’t good enough, which made me anxious. And now I am not going to ask for [the thing I want] because I know she hates my work and will say no.”
Got that? Boss said a statement. Your brain went to a negative thought. You felt anxious. Result? Not stepping into your leadership and asking for what you want, which reinforces your negative thought that your work is not good enough. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it happens to us ALL THE TIME.
But if you catch yourself in the moment - or review it afterwards (maybe with your coach) - you can see how the thought led to your feeling and your reaction.
And then you can question whether the thought is actually true. What evidence do you have for it and against it? What’s a more accurate thought?
(More here on how to change your thoughts to feel better)
I rigorously practiced this in 2020. And you know what? It worked. My thoughts changed. I found myself getting less and less cranky/mad/exhausted/annoyed/exasperated, and I found it easier to realize when I was in a thought loop. Magic!?! Nope. Hard work.
Catching more of my thought loops gave me the brain space to also ask, “what do I need right now?” The answer to that question always came back to my foundations: nourishing food, a nap, a clear financial picture, connection with my family, a hard ride on our Peloton, an episode of The Mandalorian (have you seen amazing the Grogu Christmas tree toppers on IG?!?)
I realized a few months ago - when I noticed the absence of crankiness - that my foundation building and my thought practice had been very intentional. I keep coming back to the Tara Brach quote:
“How you live today is how you live your life.”
I love that quote. New Year’s isn’t about setting a bunch of resolutions that don’t really work for your life. It’s about looking at whether the way you live your life today is how you want to live your life. If it’s not, you have the opportunity to change it. Start with your thoughts because getting out of thought loops changes everything. Changing your thoughts allows you to level up your life. And changing your thoughts takes a lot of intention.
In 2021, I plan to practice Extreme Intentionality. I learned in 2020 not to make decisions lightly. I needed a strong foundation, and more than any other year, the decisions we made in 2020 could change our health and the course of our country. These are not small things. I am going to take the intentionality I learned in 2020 and slowly, intentionally build the house I want to inhabit. This means I will be extremely intentional about every commitment I make, every major decision, how I connect in my relationships, how I grow my coaching practice, how I spend my money, and what I do to nourish my soul. There is no rush; no fad diet that will make this happen. Just the long, slow work of turning toward change.
Be in touch if you want to do this too.
Here’s to an intentional New Year!