What is your intention for 2024?
"It’s a direction, not a destination"
I don’t do New Years resolutions anymore, mostly because I learned that having a goal doesn’t translate to achieving a goal. In my experience, it’s about fostering positive habits and speeding up action.
What I do now is a yearly intention, or theme. When new opportunities arise and when decisions need to be made (or reconsidered), I ask myself what Path is most in alignment with my intention. It’s like a daily companion, rather than an abstract number on the leaderboard.
I didn’t invent this, to be sure, though I get lots of questions about it. My friend Sunny Grosso just wrote a beautiful piece about exactly this, and I highly recommend you read it — set an intention, not a resolution.
I love her perspective because she spent more than a decade leading a happiness consulting company. She knows a little something about setting goals and achieving happiness. She’s also a yoga teacher.
Here are my favorite highlights:
The things we want, are not what we really want. We’re after is what they will GET us. Or more truthfully, what we THINK they will get us.
When we recognize the thing we really want is ALREADY INSIDE of us, we can approach it differently, from a place of abundance instead of lack. Empowerment instead of need. Desire instead of desperation.
When we approach it as a direction instead of a destination, we also start to broaden where we look for it, how we feel it, and what we can do to bring it into our lives. We have all experienced that where your attention goes energy flows, so we start to see it in all kinds of places.
My intention
I’ve found lots of inspiration and insight from the Dao De Jing, and have used it to set my intention these past couple years.
Here is poem 12, and it contains my intention for 2024
Here is poem 76, and it contains my intention from 2023
If you want to learn more about the Dao De Jing, I recommend hitting up my teacher Constantine Dhonau. He has been an amazing guide for me and many others.
I hope this can be helpful. Please share with a friend in need.
Happy New Year!
