I’ll admit, I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions. If I make them, I don’t follow them, so I typically opt to abandon the practice altogether. However, this year, I decided to adapt this tradition to commit myself to creating a meaningful year, consisting of days that I fill with intentional activities and pursuits, while also finding meaning and purpose in the seemingly mundane aspects of my everyday life.
My commitment to building a more purposeful year involves ensuring that I accomplish one significant or interesting task or endeavor each day, whether it be as simple as grabbing coffee or a meal with a friend, or more intricate like trying my hand at a new skill. For the first few days of the year, these endeavors have included things such as making dinner for my family, taking a long walk on the beach, getting breakfast with all of my friends, learning a new song on the guitar, and trying to improve my pathetic crocheting skills. While some of these activities I took on because of my commitment to doing something interesting and intentional each day, others were ones that I was already doing, and this practice allowed me to recognize their meaning and importance in my everyday life.
Although this goal inspires me to take on new skills and activities, it more importantly reminds me to be cognizant of the meaning in my everyday life. Acknowledging my day and having an awareness of what I am filling it with helps to make each day more individually meaningful. For example, having dinner with my family or friends may seem like an ordinary activity, but by recognizing this time as a significant moment in my day, I can incorporate more meaning and purpose into my daily life.
Taking the time each day to reflect and grow in my awareness of what I am doing is another essential part of this practice. Although there are many ways that you can go about this, my method involves reflective journaling each day to remind myself of all of the things that I accomplished. This not only reminds me of everything that I filled my day with, but it also frames my daily activities in a more positive light. If I had a difficult and tiring day studying, I can view it as working to accomplish a hard task and focusing on my academic goals that day. If I take the time to sit in bed one day, instead of viewing myself as lazy and unproductive, I can frame this as taking a day of much-needed rest and self care, motivating myself to do something more active or spontaneous the following day.
I encourage you to try to fill each of your individual days with purpose and recognize the meaning in your everyday life. By starting small and recognizing these little moments, you will be able to build an intentional year filled with days of purpose. You will be encouraged to try new things and motivated to spend more time on the things that you love and appreciate doing the most. Most importantly, this practice will help you to give yourself grace and forgiveness and inspire you to be a more positive person throughout the coming year.