When I was 28, I discovered that my favorite day of the year was New Year’s Day. And every year since I’ve had my best year ever.
As a habit, I don’t overindulge in party mode on the Eve so the Day is mine to do with as I please. Especially before we all carried a world of possibilities in our pocket, New Year’s Day was simply the quietest day of the year. No one expected anything from me. When the kids came along, they were still busy with their presents, and it gave me the option to just BE.
One New Years Day early on I sat down and made a list of everything good that had happened the year before. Then I started with a blank sheet of paper and wrote down the things I wanted to accomplish in the coming year. I put the lists aside and pretty much forgot about them as January started up with a whoosh.
A year later, on the next New Years Day I remembered my list building exercise and pulled out that same notebook to write a new list. There was my old list. And dang if I hadn’t accomplished everything on that first list. Some things hadn’t turned out quite like I expected (e.g., a hoped-for promotion turned into a completely new job at a new company), but I was pretty much gobsmacked. My wishes had come true!
So I wrote my lists again. And again.
Year after year I’ve been putting my past behind me and envisioning success with intention. And year after year I have refined the process, taught it to my clients and used this essential method of managing my own focus to achieve pretty much everything I’ve wanted.
I’ve also learned that you don’t have to wait until January 1st to get a fresh start.
How Intentions Work
I won’t bother reiterating the problem with “resolutions,” as we all know it too well. In fact, the words themselves are irrelevant. Resolutions. Goals. Objectives. Vision. Intentions. They all work or don’t work, depending on exactly how you set them. When I began to deconstruct my intention-setting process so I could teach it to others, I realized that the difference between the useless resolutions I’d set in the past and effective intentions that worked to shape my future were that my intentions included a level of visualization that I could feel in my body.
As I learned more about the power of envisioning that pro athletes use to train their minds along with their bodies, I realized that when we allow a vision of our future success to seep from our mind into our emotions, our muscles and our heart we are literally giving our unconscious selves instructions on how to use all that untapped brain and body power inside us to guide us to success. It’s a way of activating our “right brain” intuition to work co-creatively with our “left brain” logical mind to program ourselves for specific kinds of success.
The more we envision, the more we feel our success, the more we physically prepare for our success by acting as if we’re already successful, the more we pre-build the neuron, synapse and other physiological patterns we’ll need to achieve success when the opportunities present themselves in the future. In practice this looks like the following (among other things):
- Envisioning and feeling the excitement that comes along with our dream job means that when we hear about a new job opportunity in passing, that dream job excitement we want to feel easily reignites to see if this one is a match, making us more proactive in following up on possible new job leads we might otherwise have just let slip by. It can also make us more discerning in turning away from leads that don’t match our dream job excitement feeling.
- Envisioning and feeling what it will be like to overcome anxiety in accepting a stretch assignment means that when a new project is presented and we feel anxiety about accepting it, we already know what it feels like to say “yes,” so we do so with more ease.
The best part is that by investing in your intention up front, taking the time to envision it and feeling it, prepares you to pursue it and succeed at it with much more ease, and less anxiety. It feels very natural. It often feels like magic.
How To Set a New Year’s Intention
So how do you do this thing? Setting an intention is deceptively simple and yet I’ve found it takes quite a bit of practice to get it right. This is what I work with clients to master—the ability to set intentions and then continue to refine them as real life shows up in various ways, some of which meet the intentional feeling but don’t look like the vision they originally set out. But you don’t have to master it up front to feel its power.
You can start right now to put the essential power of intention into practice to succeed in your career over the next 12 months.
FIRST: Let Go of the Past
Though this is often easier said than done, it is really pretty easy. Make a list of the stuff that’s absolutely behind you and then throw the list away. As the paper hits the trash can, feel all that stuff leave you. Some of it may feel stuck and you may have to detrigger it, but you’ll be surprised how you’ll immediately feel lighter. That’s the point. You’re exercising the power of decluttering that Marie Kondo has made so popular. You are literally freeing up emotional, mental and even physical energy when you do this. If you need a little more guidance on how to do it for your career, here’s my 4-step process for decluttering your job.
SECOND: Put Yourself in a Future Feeling State
Your imagination is your friend here. Your brain reacts to imagination much like it does to reality, so why not use that power for good? Imagine you’re 12 months from now. Imagine the weather. Imagine the people in your life. Imagine yourself loving your work. That’s it. Just imagine it as clearly and as long as you can. Let your body, mind and heart immerse yourself in this imaginary state. Every second you stay in this state you’re programming your subconscious. Write a phrase, jot a picture or make a movement that reminds you of this feeling and can reignite it in you. This imaginary state, and the reminder you create, are your intention.
THIRD: Let Your Intuition Prioritize Your Path Forward
Get in your imaginary state. Ask yourself, what ONE THING made this state possible? In reality you may come up with more than one over the course of 12 months, but the fewer the better. Whatever your mind popped up with is your shorter term goal. It becomes the focus of your energy. It’s your bridge to success. Put it on the top of your To Do List.
Boom. You’ve got it. Stay focused on your intention and the most important thing you need to do to get there and I guarantee you will succeed.
A hint: it takes practice and support to keep yourself focused on your intention. That’s why I give my clients exercises to help them through this process. It’s also why we have monthly calls in the InPower Community to refresh our intentions. Not only do you need to keep remembering your intention, you need to evolve it as life presents you with new opportunities and ways to achieve it, or replace it.
Try it this New Years Day, or any time. Have fun with it. I guarantee intentions will have fun with you!
InPower Community resources to support this work:
- Workbook and Video to Declutter Your ToDo List
- Workbook and Video to Set New Year’s Intentions
