An intention is idea that you plan, or intend, to carry out. An intention is a guiding principle for how you want to live your life. One can set yearly, monthly, weekly, daily and even moment to moment intentions. Intentions are usually a bit more abstractive than the usual resolutions are, and they focus more on the internal shift towards the goal than on the outcome itself. In intention setting, you resolve that you’re already enough, and you focus on the abundance instead of lack of something and move forward without having an attachment to the outcome. I like to set daily intentions like happiness, joy, rest or productivity, but this post is about the intention setting for the whole year of 2021.
In 2020, when I turned 25 I realized that the only thing in life I should look for is happiness - and everything else will follow. This realization catapulted an immerse shift in my whole attitude towards life and the intention of happiness will continue to be big part of my life. But on the other hand, as last year showed how well this intention setting works for me, I am also excited to set some new goals and intentions for 2021.
In order to start a new year it felt important to finish the last year off properly. Therefore I did the recap of the 12 things that made me happier in 2020 in the last post. This exercise was fun way to see how the wide and abstract intention of happiness actually translated into daily habits. Moreover, my friends and I did Kassandra Reinhart's Year End Review & Goal Setting Session which can be found here. In this exercise you first review the past year by listing all the milestones and goals reached in terms of the Livelihood&Lifestyle Body&Wellness Creativity&Learning Relationships&Society and Essence&Spirituality. The point is to list only positive things and focus on being grateful for all the great achievements on all these areas of your life. By doing this recap exercise you for sure realize how much greatness fitted into the past year!!
After writing down and feeling good of the past year, it's time to focus on the year ahead. For the new year, you write down your goals and desires and wants on these same five categories of Livelihood&Lifestyle Body&Wellness Creativity&Learning Relationships&Society and Essence&Spirituality. In this process you should just write down whatever pops up into your mind without any filtering or thinking whether these goals are "achievable" or not. This is all about dreaming big and being excited about the year ahead. No limitations!! In the end, you can also theme the main intention by one word or a short sentence. I chose to theme 2021 with an intention to be Professional. Let's see what changes this intention will bring!!
Another new intention setting tactic I tried is by Jenatkinhair from instagram. In this method, you imagine what would you do if there was no way to fail. You can dream and visualize what would you be do and have for the next 6 and 12 months. In addition, there were pretty straightforward blank statements which are helpful in order to understand what you might want to do or change during 2021. Lastly, I wrote down some personal, health, career, recreational, home and spirituality related goals and intentions.
Probably my favorite thing to do was to create my own visionboard. I've been contemplating about making a visionboard for the longest time but somehow it has always felt a bit overwhelming to fit all my visions on to one board. But this time I focused plainly on the following year and therefore fitting the visions on the one board was a way easier :) I also added some affirmations and actual written goals to go with the inspirational pictures. I think it turned out pretty great and now I got the visionboard also printed out! Here is the online version tho. I used Canva for layout and affirmations and the most of the pictures are from Pinterest :)
All in all, I think this intention setting is a great fun as long as you keep it casual. If some of these dreams do not happen this year - so what? Regardless of the final outcome I think the intention setting gets you excited about the limitless possibilities this wonderful life has to offer ♥ I highly recommend everyone to try!!!