What that resolution taught me about intention
I used to take the New Year very seriously.
Every January began with a fresh notebook and a list of resolutions that felt ambitious and necessary. One year, I decided I was going to become fluent in French. Not conversational. Fluent.
At the time, I was a pre-med uni student living in Minnesota. I had no French-speaking friends, no immersion, no real context for making that goal stick. It sounded good on paper. It felt like the kind of resolution you were supposed to make.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t last.
What lingered wasn’t the goal itself, but the quiet sense of failing. Each week I wasn’t practicing felt like evidence that I lacked discipline or follow-through. The resolution didn’t simply fade; it followed me, turning the start of the year into a low-grade pressure I carried with me.
That feeling shows up for a lot of people in January.
Beneath the fresh start energy, there’s often a quieter fatigue. A sense that we should be doing more, deciding more, fixing more—often before we’ve even had time to catch our breath from the year we just lived.
So let’s say this out loud: you don’t have to declare goals. You don’t have to reinvent yourself. You don’t have to turn January into a performance.
Intention isn’t about adding more. Sometimes, it’s about choosing what not to carry forward.
What That Resolution Was Really About
It took me years to understand why that French resolution mattered so much to me.
The goal was fluency. But fluency was never really the point.
What I was reaching for was a feeling. I wanted to feel global. I wanted to travel, to live abroad, to connect with people beyond my familiar world. Language, for me, has always been about connection.
Once I could see that, the story changed.
The resolution didn’t fail because I lacked discipline. It failed because the goal was trying to stand in for an intention I hadn’t yet named. And in a quiet, indirect way, that intention did find its way forward. Shortly after graduate school, I moved abroad. I lived and worked outside the U.S. for almost a decade.
The outcome I was longing for arrived, just not through the structure I’d forced onto it.
That’s the difference between goals and intention.
Goals ask, What am I trying to achieve?
Intention asks, What am I actually longing for?
Goals live in the future. They’re outcome-focused. Intention is about orientation. It shapes how we move through the present, even when the path isn’t clear yet.
This doesn’t mean goals don’t matter. It means they work best when they come after intention, not before. When intention leads, goals become tools rather than measures of worth.parasympathetic response.
What Intention Actually Is
Intention isn’t a task you complete or a result you check off. It’s the way you choose to orient yourself in your life.
It’s the quality you bring to your time, your choices, and your attention. It shows up quietly in everyday decisions—what you say yes to, what you protect, how full your days become, and how you treat yourself when things don’t go as planned.
Intention doesn’t require certainty. You don’t need a perfectly articulated vision for the year. Often, it begins as a feeling you’re drawn toward before you know exactly how to get there.
That’s why intention holds when goals fall away. When plans shift or capacity changes, intention remains relevant. It adapts. It gives you something steady to return to, even when the path isn’t linear.
The Power of Being Intentional With Not Doing
We’re used to thinking of intention as something that adds direction—something that points us toward action. But just as often, intention reveals what needs to be released.
So much of modern life is built around accumulation. More goals. More habits. More optimization. Even rest gets turned into something to improve.
Intention invites a different question: What actually needs less of me right now?
Being intentional with not doing doesn’t mean disengaging from your life. It means choosing with discernment rather than default. Sometimes that looks like not filling every open space in your calendar. Sometimes it’s not saying yes simply because you always have. Sometimes it’s not turning every quiet moment into something productive.
Relief has a way of clarifying what matters. When one small source of friction is removed, space opens. And in that space, intention begins to emerge on its own.
How to Become More Intentional
Intention doesn’t begin with a plan. It begins with noticing.
Instead of asking what you want to accomplish this year, start with a quieter question:
How do I want to feel as I move through my days?
Or, if it helps you widen the lens:
Twelve months from now, when I look back, how will I know this was a good year for me?
Not a perfect year. Not a productive one. A year that felt true.
From there, intention becomes clearer through a few simple steps. These aren’t meant to be rushed or completed. They’re touchpoints you can return to as the year unfolds.
🌿Name the feeling you’re moving toward.
You don’t need a word for the year. A feeling is enough. Calm. Spaciousness. Connection. Steadiness. Let it be intuitive rather than impressive.
👁️ Notice what expands and what constricts.
Pay attention to how your days feel. What leaves you feeling more like yourself? What consistently feels tight, draining, or heavy? Misalignment often shows up as constriction long before it shows up as burnout.
🧭Identify what you’re maintaining out of habit.
Ask yourself:
- What routines or patterns are no longer supporting me?
- What expectations am I still meeting that don’t actually matter anymore?
- Where am I putting energy simply because I always have?
🍃 Choose one small thing to loosen or release.
Intention often becomes clearer through subtraction. This doesn’t require dramatic change. One unnecessary obligation, one overfull day, or one self-imposed “should” softened or removed is enough to create relief.
✨Let intention emerge rather than forcing it.
After something is released, notice what you protect more easily. What you say yes to without effort. What feels worth your time and attention. That’s where intention lives—not as a declaration, but as an orientation you return to again and again.
The practice isn’t about defining your whole year in January. It’s about staying in relationship with what feels aligned, and letting that awareness guide your choices as the year unfolds.
An Invitation, Not an Assignment
If January has taught us anything, it’s that beginnings don’t have to be loud to be meaningful.
You don’t need a perfect plan. You don’t need a word for the year. You don’t need to decide who you’re becoming before the year has even had a chance to meet you.
Intention doesn’t ask for certainty. It asks for presence.
So consider this an invitation to spend a little time with yourself this week. Not to map the year ahead, but to listen. To notice. To let clarity and relief emerge in their own time.
The year doesn’t need to be mastered. It just needs to be met—with honesty, discernment, and a little more space than before.
