Resolutions vs. Expectations vs. Intentions
Are you entering 2025 with your usual list of TODO’s? Yeah…me too. But what if we could peacefully enter into this year with a mindset that serves us in ways we could never imagine? Let’s ditch resolving to change. Let’s toss our expectations in the trash. Let’s set some damn good intentions and see what happens. Who’s with me??
Resolutions are “firm determinations to do something.” Resolutions are set when we “firmly decide on a course of action.”
Feels kinda forced, right? Here’s the thing: Willpower is fickle, unmanageable, and uncontrollable. We rely on willpower to achieve success with our resolutions, so, you know…good luck with that. Resolutions are also usually set as a tradition during a specific time of year (New Year) rather than during phases in one’s life when true change is calling. Lastly, most of the time, the behavioral changes we seek are based on what we think we should do rather than aligning our truest desires with our most authentic selves.
How do you know if you’re following your authentic desires? Your choices will be led with curiosity and joy. Simple? Yep. Successful? You betcha. Give it a try and see what happens.
Expectations are “strong beliefs that something will happen.” We set expectations when we “believe someone will or should achieve something.”
Sounds like a whole lotta wishing to me, am I right or am I right?? When we place expectations on people or situations, we are handing over our power to another for the desired outcome we seek. So, when we head into the New Year expecting others to change how they behave so we can feel better in our lives and relationships, we’re setting ourselves up for failure, my friends.
You expect your spouse to want to make healthy changes alongside you because it will benefit both of you and bring you closer together. Only they have no desire to change and are happy where they’re at.
You expect your best friend to give you more time because her last kiddo went off to college. But she’s planning extended traveling adventures with her mate and taking classes to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a yoga instructor.
You expect your boss to give you a raise or promotion, but final-quarter numbers are in, and it turns out your hours are getting cut.
How do you save yourself from a heaping dose of disappointment? Take the other person or situation out of the equation altogether. Focus on the most important change-maker in the formula: YOU. When you do that, you’re taking the power over the desired outcome back where it belongs: with YOU.
Intentions are set “as a purpose from the self.” We set intentions when we want to “focus on the process and experience rather than the outcome.”
Intentions are conscious goals or desires that focus more on the process than the outcome. They reflect your commitment to act with a certain mindset or purpose, without being rigidly tied to a specific result. They tend to foster peace, mindfulness, and personal growth. Since intentions are process-oriented, they bring more contentment, even if the outcome is not exactly as hoped. They encourage self-compassion.
When we set intentions, we invite our focus to be on our own actions, behaviors, and thoughts to support or experience a situation, person, or relationship without expectations. When there’s no expected outcome, we’re free to engage fully, completely, and openly with a person or situation.
I don’t expect my mate to join my “health makeover”. I set an intention to align with my body’s needs and commit to actions and behaviors that bring me joy and make me feel good. I would love it if my mate joined me, but I honor and respect where they’re at in their own journey. My journey doesn’t rely on theirs. Make sense?
I don’t expect my bestie to spend more time with me but I will communicate that I’d love to spend more time with her. My intentions are to continue engaging in my own life in joyful ways. When she and I can meet in the middle, we will. Either way, my joyful life doesn’t depend on her giving me more of her time.
I don’t expect my boss to give me anything. However, I will do the work I was hired to do with joy (hopefully) while maintaining my integrity. So long as my mindset is in alignment with my actions, and both are in alignment with my truth, the rest will figure itself out. Or, I will begin to look elsewhere for a job with a boss that appreciates my hard word and a company that can afford to reward me for it. Either way, my intention is to balance serving my position and myself in a way that honors both my needs and desires as well as the company for which I work.
When I write my intentions, the first thing I do is consider which areas of my life are up for attention. Career, personal life fulfillment and relationships, romantic life fulfillment and relationships, finances, etc. Then I follow these steps:
Meditate and connect with the body: The body doesn’t lie and is the best tool for identifying what you want and need. I meditate on the different areas of my life that want my focus and then I pay attention to how my body feels and where in my body I’m having sensations. Then, I take some time and dig around in there and see what I come up with.
I journal whatever I came up with in my meditations but I also use those meditations to figure out the right questions to answer in my journal. The number one question I ask myself in each area of my life as I journal is, “What do I want to feel?” The next is, “What does fulfillment look like for me?”
Then I go back inside the mind and visualize what it looks and feels like. When you visualize what you intend, you breathe life into it and that is what makes it so.
This is how I manifest and how I set my intentions. I write my intentions down and sometimes I vision board them. This year, I had the time of my life coloring in an adult coloring book and in teensy, tiny letters, wrote my intentions for the year along the lines of the drawing. At first glance, you likely wouldn’t even notice the words. But look closer, and there is my 2025 mapped out and set in ink.
What intentions do you want to set this year? What actions and behaviors are you curious about? When you think about them, do you feel excited? What does 2025 look and feel like to you?
Want help navigating the year’s terrain? Reach out. I can help with that.
