By Karen Miller-Lane, ND, L.Ac
‘Knowing others is intelligence; Knowing yourself is true wisdom.”
Laozi, Ancient Chinese Philosopher (~500 BCE)
At the end of every year and the beginning of a new year, I get this strong urge to re-evaluate goals and create new plans for the coming year. For me, this is not about New Year’s resolutions, but about intentions. I know that as the year progresses and life gets busy, our best intentions can get fuzzy if not forgotten. Perhaps writing them down will enable me to return to them as the seasons ebb and flow. By sharing my own process with you, my hope is that what is important within each of us to will emerge through our conscious intentions, goals, and plans despite our often changing life circumstances and busy lives.
How do we stay present to our intentions? Ryder Carroll of The Bullet Journal defines an “intention” as a commitment to a process, and a “resolution” as a commitment to an outcome. Intentions are not defined by some future outcome, they're defined by present actions. He states that an “intention” is to be rather than become. Given that our circumstances, needs, and our feelings are constantly changing, how do we explore intentions that reflect what is of value to us here and now? What if we considered the following four questions that Ryder Carroll suggests when creating our intentions:
Why do we want to do this?
Why does it matter?
Why is it worth my limited time on this earth?
What lies underneath my goals and behind my goals?
Once we have clarified our intentions, we can generate goals to reflect that resolution or intention. A goal is a definition of an outcome, it describes a point in time where a certain set of outcomes will be met. Once we have set a goal, then, we develop a plan to define the process, the actions required to achieve the goal. Ideally, a goal plus a plan equals results.
For example, a goal is that we want to lose the 20 pounds we gained in 2024. The plan may involve changes to how we eat, a commitment to exercise so many days a week, and perhaps journaling about the experience. We may even set a date of the outcome. Why is it that researchers suggest that only 9% of Americans that make resolutions such as these complete them? In fact, research goes on to show that 23% of people quit their resolutions by the end of the first week, and 43% quit by the end of January. What is missing for many who quit their resolutions or goals, especially early on, is that our goals are meant to support something we care about independent of our goals. As Ryder Carroll reminds us, the ambitions we set for ourselves are based on the things we value because of who we are. Yet, we get caught up in creating goals too quickly without first clarifying what we care about. We do not take the time to set intentions.
Hence, if we can return to the “Why” and "What" questions listed above, it is important to remember that what we value arises uniquely in each of us—it is ours alone. These deeper values are a distinct expression of who we are and they want to be listened into being. Are we taking the time to “listen ourselves into being”?
The phrase, “listening ourselves into being” is a paraphrase from Mary Rose O’Reilly and it is taken from her book, Teaching as Radical Presence. O’Reilly proposes that it is the job of a teacher to “listen their students into existence.” The teachers job is not to ‘instill’ something into another human being. Instead, the teacher’s role is to develop the capacity of radical presence such that they are able to listen with their complete attention and focus to what a student is saying–whether orally, in writing or a work of art. Through this radical presence, through this giving of full attention and care, a teacher is trying to allow the student to speak themselves into being. Again, it is not the responsibility of the teacher to instill identity into the student, but to be so attentive as to provide a space for the student’s own realization of themselves.
When we engage O’Reilly’s suggestion and apply it to ourselves, we are provided with a unique tool to listen our own intentions into being. The question becomes, Can we be a radical presence for ourselves so that our intentions, goals, and plans are in service to who we are, what we value, and how we want to be in the world? To “know thyself” and embody that understanding in the world.
So, let’s say that after spending time with the questions above we figure out that our intention is to be healthy and vibrant in 2025. Then, perhaps, one goal that expresses that intention is to lose the 20 pounds we gained in 2024. It is worth returning to the questions again:
Why do we want to lose 20 pounds?
Why does it matter?
Why is it worth my incredibly limited time on this earth?
What lies underneath my goals and behind my goals?
Initially, we may say it’s because we want to fit into our old clothes again. We want to feel better and have more energy. We want to look great for a certain event. Now, what lies underneath our goal and behind our goal? This is where listening may be the most challenging. Getting underneath our initial, facile response will require deep listening, a willingness to be with the discomfort and confusion that may lie hidden. Deep listening is a mixture of patience, willingness, courage and the crucial quality of loving kindness. As Pema Chodran, a long time Buddhist nun and teacher states “staying with pain without loving-kindness is just warfare.” Setting a New Year’s intention should not mean declaring war on your last year’s self. In order to listen ourselves into being we will need to love ourselves into being as well.
When we are willing to dance in this space of discomfort and uncertainty with a “strong back and soft heart,” we illuminate whether our intention reflects who we are or something we think we should be doing to please others or please some vision of ourselves that we think the world wants us to be. We may realize that our intention and our goals are actually in conflict or that the goals have their own agenda that we aren’t conscious of.
As Ryder Carroll reminds us, come back to what you value. Work to clarify your intentions and then create a few goals to support the intention. We often do this backwards. We create a goal and then try to fit it into our lifeview and life schedule. We want to lose 20 pounds - so we fit it into an intention of health without actually understanding why we care about those 20lbs. Unconsciously, perhaps those 20lbs may be due to shame or guilt or the messages we received about our bodies and looks.
If we don’t know the deep why of a goal, whose existence is in service to who we are, how are we going to find the time, energy and effort required to meet this goal through the trials and tribulations of the next year? Perhaps this is why the majority of new year's resolutions fail. An unconscious goal plus a rushed plan equals a guaranteed failure because the goal doesn’t reflect what we value. Without taking the time to listen our intentions into being, the goals we identify are likely to reflect old family or cultural patterns and values. If a resolution is a commitment to an outcome, and the resolution doesn’t hold value for us, our commitment will fade away. The goal needs to reflect the intention, what we value and what matters to us. An intention is the process of becoming. The deepest part of us already knows what is important to us. We just need to make the time to listen our knowing into being.
Some Practices That Might Be Helpful
To do this, we want to create a routine of listening. Start with the three whys and the what. I recommend a journal where you write down whatever comes to mind. Do not edit your initial responses, simply allow them to come without judgment. Note what emotions, feelings, or memories arise. We want to be gentle with ourselves. After you have written for a while, notice if any intentions surface. One suggestion is to keep your intentions to around three. If the list becomes too long we are probably generating goals and bypassed the why.
Once you have made time to listen, ask, and journal and you have created some intentions and perhaps goals - revisit them. Tend to your intentions and the goals that support them. Create check ins, re-listen, ask yourselves the three whys and what every month or every few months, do they still apply? When you revisit your intentions or goals, listen anew by asking What am I supporting that reflects who I am and want to be? How do I make time to listen to the spaces in between and reflect on my everyday experiences? Let the listening guide you home.
Many blessings to you.
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