I used to not be much of a New Year resolution person. I liked to think of birthdays as a great start to setting new goals for the year ahead (based around one’s next cycle around the sun vs. the turn of a calendar page). And I’m still not a resolution person…I prefer to think of them as goals or intentions. Words matter and I like that these have a little more flexibility since life will inevitably happen. And while I do still set goals around my birthday, in the last several years, I’ve started to really like the idea of also setting some with a new calendar year.
There’s something fresh about starting again: opening up a new calendar or cracking open a new notebook with crisp, blank pages. There’s so much possibility.
It can also be a little daunting. As I reflected earlier on what I wanted to accomplish in this upcoming year, I found myself writing out some steps in the coming months to help achieve those things. Only, I was making the year quite a bit top-heavy, loading up the first few months and winding down towards the summer. I had to – and actually, still need to – remind myself that there are twelve months to accomplish all the things. And even if I don’t finish the goal or project (or whatever), that’s still twelve months to get a good start and do what I can.
I think that front loading comes from the excitement of the goals and the plans. It makes sense to want to have them done and settled as quickly as possible. But if I end up front loading the year, it can be a little discouraging when there’s too much going on and some things start to fall away. A year is a long time. It may not often feel like it – especially when we get into the final few months – but it is. And a lot can happen in that time. It’s a good reminder that we can use up all the twelve months and not just the first quarter or so.

This year, I intend to embrace the possibility. And the constant possibility. I broke down my ideas for the year into smaller actions and after realizing how front loaded they were, I tried to be intentional about spacing them out throughout the year. That also gives me space for readjusting as life happens and things come up, but also to create new goals as my ideas change.
There’s excitement in that possibility too, that things may change and I may want to dream up something new that’s possible in six months that I may not have an idea of now. Whatever I plan today does not have to be my plan come December. And that’s freeing.