Making Sustainable and Nourishing Plans for A New Year

How’s your year going so far? How many posts about planning your year and MAKING THIS NEW YEAR COUNT have you read lately? 😬 All of the external messages about success this time of year make me tired, but we don’t have to listen to anything that doesn’t serve us!

If you needed time to recover from the holidays, family, and travel 🙋‍♀️, and haven’t set any goals yet, you’re not hopelessly behind, I promise. 

I personally don’t think that there’s anything wrong with using the momentum of the new year to set intentions and goals, but if the idea of planning your whole decade gives you hives, just don’t! 

Depending on our work, we all have different planning needs, but whether you choose to look at month, quarter, year, or more, having that big picture vision is the thing that will guide your every day actions and enable you to fulfill your big dreamy goals one step at a time. 

I would definitely describe myself as a planner - I learned that skill extremely well by example (hi, Mom). Even so, I’ve never made a long-term plan - the future always seems too unknowable and hard to grasp. I have big goals that haven’t happened yet, but there’s no “here’s what will happen in 10 years”. You can choose to look at whatever increment works for you - starting small is always good. 

Also, if you have big life events coming up, going easy on your aspirations isn’t just a good idea, it might be the thing that saves your sanity. At the beginning of 2019, I was fresh off of releasing my debut album Florescer in October 2018 and launching Coaching for Creative Wellness in November, so doing anything other than setting minimal goals felt like too much. On top of that, I was pretty sure (but not confirmed) that we would be moving from Minnesota to California in the summer, and when you have basically no idea what your life is going to look like in a few months, making a bunch of plans and goals seems silly and hard to wrap your head around. 

Plans will (and should!) evolve

Even if you do make detailed plans for the rest of this year, they’re just that, plans. Even the best-laid plans are never set in stone, things change and evolve, and that can cause stress, but it’s totally fine. The important thing is having a regular habit of reflection. Have you ever set goals in January, then completely forgot what they were by the time you found that notebook again? (Yeah, me too.)

Checking in regularly ensures that you can keep reinforcing your goals with aligned actions, react to changes as needed, and keep checking in with yourself to see if you even still want to complete those goals! If you don’t, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with chucking them, in fact, I think it’s better than leaving them around to clog up your to-do list and mind.

Making sustainable plans

You might be sensing that I, a plan fan, am still feeling wary about putting too much on my plate. That’s because I used to treat New Year planning like an all-you-can-eat buffet. I downloaded all of the worksheets, planners, and resources, and then, of course, got really overwhelmed.

2019’s more minimal approach continued to make sense for me as I adjusted to rebuilding my life in a new place, but once I felt more settled, I became more ready to take on more new projects. However, that didn’t mean that I should open the floodgates and put ALL THE THINGS on my 2020 goal list - it’s a tricky dance between acting on our many ambitions and keeping a nourishing, sustainable pace that allows us to keep healthy bodies and minds. 

Also, P.S., if you don’t feel a surge of inspiration and energy with the new year, and still feel like hibernating, that totally makes sense, because it’s winter. A lot of the “fresh new energy” we get from changing over the calendar is because it’s right after a time of rest and diversion from our normal schedules, and any time after a break or vacation could work the same way.

You can create a fresh start whenever you want and need to, on March 27 or a random Saturday night at 10pm - you get to decide! If you resonate more with spring as the start of a new year, when new life is flourishing, that makes tons of sense, too.

With that regular reflection I mentioned earlier, new years aren’t make-or-break - you’re always in an intentional process, and always moving forward toward something you really want to be doing, via nourishing yourself, taking action, or both!  

So how do you know what should go on your new year goals list?

If you’re looking for an easy way to start a reflection practice, check out my weekly and monthly check in worksheets to get you started!

The weekly check in is only 4 simple questions and takes me < 10 minutes.⁠

Having this practice has helped so much with clarifying my priorities, and also celebrating what I’ve learned and accomplished (no small thing!) I highly suggest making a little time for it.

(If you’re in the low energy camp, NO PRESSURE to make a lot of plans if that’s beyond your bandwidth right now. You can still start percolating on your priorities now - first you clarify what you want, and once you know what you want, you can start making plans!)

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