Set Your Intention for the New Year

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Set Your Intention for the New Year
By Christa Heibel

If you’re like me (and lots of other folks), you’d much rather plan for the future than look to the past. But the New Year invites us to reflect, and I usually recommend my business clients perform year-end reviews to help them plan for the coming year. This year, I invite you to do the same with a personal review. I’m a proponent of writing goals down, for both business growth and personal development. That said, I think many of us miss a critical first step in the goal-setting process: setting intention.

Thousands of years ago, the sages of India observed that destiny is ultimately shaped by our deepest intentions and desires. The classic Vedic text known as the Upanishads declares, “You are what your deepest desire is. As your desire is, so is your intention. As your intention is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

Setting intention is something yogis practice regularly, whether at the beginning of a yoga or meditation session, or the start of the day. Intentions guide our goals and visions and help create clarity in life. As a metaphor, setting an intention is like drawing a map of where you want to go. Without a map (intention), you are driving down a road with no destination in mind.

Consider intention the seed from which your creations – whether for money, relationships, spiritual awakening or love – form and flourish. “Like real seeds, intentions can’t grow if you hold on to them,” writes Deepak Chopra, M.D., a best-selling author, physician, and founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing. “Only when you release your intentions into the fertile depths of your consciousness can they grow and flourish.”

I invite you to explore the idea of setting intention, even if it feels foreign. Some to consider include:

I intend to manifest happiness naturally.
I intend to respond first, and then react.
I intend to witness Divinity in everyone.
I intend to lead by example.
I intend to be open to success and abundance.
I intend to stop taking things personally.

One of my intentions for the New Year is to remain curious and open to new information and opportunity. Your intention is really up to you, just remember to keep it positive and uplifting and give it room to evolve as you grow and change.

I invite you to join me for my class, Meditation for Your Mind’s Health, which begins with setting intention. Also, please share your intentions on the Replenish Facebook page. Maybe you will discover a new friend with the same goals or be inspired by someone else’s dream.