Intention For a New Year

My yoga practice is admittedly sporadic.  My travel and work schedules don’t always align nicely with classes and such I spend way too little time on my mat.  But I try to keep the spiritual side of my practice up daily – to relieve stress, combat anxiety around delays and uncertainty, and to keep me centered.  One of the things many of my fellow practitioners do each year is set an intention for a new year.

Some set their intention in terms of goals (or even resolutions).  Some pick a mantra.  I’m fond of picking a word each year to focus on.  As I pick my word, I think about what I may be struggling with – or where I want to focus my personal efforts.  Words for me in recent years have included authentic and brave.  I always spend a few days as I wrap up the year thinking about my word as it definitely sets a tone for me.  In the year I focused on “authentic” for example, I really tried to strip a lot of pretense from my life and focus on living a truer version of myself.

I’ve decided that my word for 2015 will be CHANGE.

I’m going into 2015 knowing that change will be inevitable.  I plan to make some shifts in my career this year so change is a given.  But by setting this as an intention, I’m putting it front and center.  I’m considering change in everything I’m doing – not just work, but my personal routine and even my travel patterns.  And yes, that means it might even flow through to what I write here.

In terms of travel, I’ll hit the ground running in five days as I start the 2015 sprint in full force (five trips in thirteen days!!!) and as I plan out my personal adventures, I’m planning to try some new things.  For example, I’m reconsidering the trips I always take and seeing if I can replace them with new adventures.  And I’m branching out and trying some different things in terms of travel (from new ways to spend a weekend away to different airlines/hotels than my norm).

As I think about my change, I’m looking for new ideas.  This global events list yesterday gave me some ideas of things to consider for Q2 (my Q1 is already mostly planned save for my birthday) – Thailand’s Songkran, for example, has always been on my “want to do” list.  And a trip to Milan seems to like a must do sometime during the year.  Others possibilities are from my own personal bucket list – Oktoberfest and cruising the Greek Isles are two.

Did you set an intention or resolution for 2015?  If so, how does it align with your travel plans?