We are now a few weeks into the new year, and it feels like things have just kept moving full speed ahead.

I have barely had a chance to look at the year ahead and see what goals or intentions I plan to set for 2023. Truthfully, I stopped making resolutions a few years ago. The pressures of trying to keep up with new habits right after a busy holiday season just kept feeling more and more like work, and less and less attainable.

If you take a moment to think about it, anytime you want to make a change, it’s always encouraged to do it in small chunks, but it seems like resolutions just became “Go Big or Go Home.”

I have since shifted into setting goals that are more aligned with intentions, than they are with shifting entire habits and routines.

The tricky part with this?  It requires some reflection on our growth from the previous year. And while that may seem simple enough, how can we measure our growth?

Sure, it is part perception of where you are now rather than where you were 365 days ago, and sometimes it’s obvious. Other times we may feel…well, unchanged. But don’t associate your feeling of being unchanged with not having had growth.

A lot of times in mental health, changes can be more nuanced. The reason? Healing is not a unilateral experience. We don’t set foot in a therapy session and see a growth curve that continues to move up. The reality is, we move up, we come down, we may even plateau for a while. If you graphed it…it would look pretty interesting.

The development of our intentional goals can actually be measured, which is important because, by nature, we tend to downplay our achievements and focus on what we DIDN’T accomplish.

Sound familiar?

When we set goals or intentions solely based on something we haven’t done yet, or something not accomplished, we are setting ourselves up for lots of work. While there should be an expectation of work with a new goal, when it feels like a total overhaul, we are less likely to meet our own expectations which makes our goals fall flat.

However, if you set your goals based on your growth, you’re essentially compounding your success. That’s not to say you can’t or shouldn’t set intentions that challenge you in some way, but they shouldn’t be the ONLY thing you’re considering when you’re looking ahead.

Allow yourself you continue to bloom in the rich soil that you’ve already cultivated. You’ve worked hard to get where you are. Don’t be too eager to jump from one garden to the next, when there is still plenty of tending left to do in your current mental garden.

So what tools can we use to measure growth?

Identified Strengths

This is a simple one to start with! Write a list what you believe are your individual strengths right now. How do these strengths play into your overall view of yourself? Hold onto this list and reassess at the end of the year or throughout several points throughout the year.

In your reassessment:

• What strengths have you added? 
• What added value do these strengths give your overall view of yourself?

Take these strengths and find intentions that play directly to those. Maximize what you know you can do well, and how you can use those strengths to grow.

Start a Gratitude Journal(By Therapist Aid LLC)

If you’ve read our blogs before, then you know gratitude is a repeated theme here, and there’s a reason for that. Looking at ourselves with profound appreciation will often reveal a pattern of strengths that we may have missed through a brief assessment, and may even lead you to intentional goals. This practiced gratitude will dynamically shift you to lead with positive thinking.

Not a writer? You don’t have to be! A gratitude journal is not meant to be a beautifully written novel, nor is it expected to be lengthy, unless you want it to be. You are speaking only to yourself. Finding gratitude in your daily life is more than just looking at what you’re thankful for. It’s being able to be mindful of your surroundings and identify the things in your day that made you smile, or laugh, or brought out the best in you. Find the good, feel the good.

Some helpful jumping off journal prompts:

• Something funny that happened today was…
• Someone I am thankful for today is…
• Something I accomplished today was…
• I am proud of myself today because…
• My favorite part of today was…

Best Possible Self (By Therapist Aid LLC)

As people, we have many different sides. We have our personal side, our professional side, and our social side. This is a visualization exercise that encourages you to spend 5 minutes each day thinking about your best possible self for each of your domains (Personal, Professional, and Social).

During this visualization, write in detail your best possible self in each domain, re-centering yourself if your thoughts begin to wander. This exercise is a deeper dive into our personal beings and the scenarios we picture ourselves in. This kind of detailed look allows you manifest and bring out your best self!

This idea that you’ve got to complete reinvent yourself every 365 days is exhausting, especially when there is nothing wrong with who you are now. Setting intentions for the year allows you to continually grow from where you are now, creating the building blocks of mental wellbeing. All of the tools and exercises mentioned are used by our providers as a way to help you sort through your mental complexities, to show you just how much you’ve grown; however, these tools are useful to use day-to-day, especially when looking to create intentional goals. 

Need a more guided experience? Our team is here to help you learn how to best utilize these tools to show just how much you’ve grown and how to effectively set and manage your goals.