What's your New Year's Intention?

My New Year's Eve was relatively uneventful. I cooked this delicious PaleOMG recipe for my family, where I replaced the coconut oil with coconut milk and SunButter with almond butter, yum!.  A small gathering followed where I happily consumed my parents’ leftover wine and chocolates (student budget here), enjoyed some champagne and battled the snow in Calgary. Looking back, 2013 wasn’t the greatest year for my family. The people I care about most in my life battled major flooding in Calgary, the ice storm in Toronto, health scares, job losses and other unnecessary stressors. Needless to say, we are all anticipating 2014 being a healthier and happier year. I’ve now read numerous articles on New Years Resolutions, and found an interesting and rising trend. Instead of setting resolutions, many life coaches, and health bloggers are opting for setting intentions. Taken from the Huffinton Post, “Intentions simply ask that we go through our day, hour-by-hour, being as mindful, conscious, aware and awake as we are able to be in that moment. Intentions invite us to do our personal work on becoming more of a human-being, and less human-doing or a human-thinking.”

I like this trend because I believe giving up the rigid constraints of the typical ‘lose five pounds’ or ‘drop one dress size’ goal can help you focus on what matters most in life. Ask yourself, am I present? Am I happy? Am I surrounded by loving friends? Then set an intention to wake up and make the most of your life. 

After my own collection of health scares and hospital visits last summer, I’m not setting any specific goals, but focusing on an overarching theme of better physical and mental health for the new year.

To quote another article in the Calgary Herald, "This way, rather than trying to push, force and drive toward a goal, we allow our life to unfold by noticing what would make it great and what we can still do and become."

What are your intentions for the New Year?