A Year of Intentional Living
This post may contain affiliate links. See site Terms here.
A Year of Intentional Living
A lot of people thrive off creating their New Year’s resolutions, but it’s often stressful for me – here’s why: I’ll get overzealous about creating a lot of resolutions. I’ll do well for a month or two and then I’ll burn out! How can I possibly keep 15 new resolutions while not getting overwhelmed? 😉
So this year I’m trying something different- I’m creating something called A Year of Intentional Living, and I want you to try it along with me! I’ve chosen six areas I want to improve this year. I want this to be intentional – not just a big list of things I won’t do. For each area I’ve designated two months of the year to focus on that subject. I’ll start in January on one topic, work on that topic really hard for a month, and then in February move to the next topic. I’m hoping the habits I form each month will carry over. And if I start to get lax, I’ve decided to use the last 6 months of the year to focus on these topics again. Thus, A Year of Intentional Living. So… for January I’m working on health. I’m trying to stick to a food plan, eat clean, exercise, and really allow space for that. Because I’m scheduling in time later in the year for other areas I want to improve, I’m hoping it will keep me from feeling the need to do EVERYTHING in January. Next month I’ll be focusing on managing my time better, and as I do that I’m hoping my healthy habits stick around. Come July, I’ll be focusing on health again. Make sense?
I’ve read over and over that it takes 21 days to form a habit. So I thought… what if I take the 6 habits I want to form in 2108 and spend a month on each, then repeat? Hopefully by the end of the year I’ll improve on these.
Here are the categories I really want to improve on for A Year of Intentional Living in 2018:
- Health (January and July)
- Time Management (February and August)
- Decluttering (March and September)
- Faith (April and October)
- Budgeting (May and November)
- Learning, Education, and Enriching my Mind (June and December)
To help me (and you!) stay on track, I’ve created printables for each month. To get each printable, click here to the folder. I’m planning to hang mine on my fridge. Here’s an example of how each month will look – at the top write your specific goals for the month – I’m sure all our specific goals will each be a bit different. After you write all the goals, break them down into things you can do daily to achieve these. Then each day check off if you’ve accomplished the goals. I’m a big needer of checking things off as motivation to do them! Something about seeing this little checkmarks will (hopefully!) help me get these goals accomplished. I’ve also created a blank page here, so you can create your own monthly goals.
Whether you’d like to complete the whole year with me, or just a month here and there, I’d love to have you along! I’ll even be giving away prizes from my shop throughout the year as motivation! Be sure to tag #plumstreetyearofintentionalliving on Instagram with any photos related to your goals. I’ll go through and pick winners to send prizes to.
Also, if you want to write in your own, different goals each month, I’ve created a printable here for you to create whatever goal you’d like each month! Just click this link for the blank goal page.
Be sure to follow along on my Instagram page (and stories) … I’m really hoping doing this together will help us all meet our goals, or at least improve significantly! I’m also hoping that doing specific goals for a month will really help us (me) be intentional with what I’m focusing on, rather than trying to do too much at once. Let’s do this 2018!
Thanks for following along and be sure to tag me if you join in with A Year of Intentional Living @plumstreetcollective !