2022 intentions: How I set mine, and you can too!

The year before West was born, as we celebrated with sparkling apple juice all cozy at home when I was 9 months pregnant, Chad and I started a new tradition.  I get to call it a tradition because we did it again last year in Aspen and are planning it again this year. It’s one of my favorite things we do together. I love traditions; they make being a couple and a family so incredibly special.

We sat down at the kitchen counter by the fire and wrote down what we wanted to accomplish in 2020. When we finished, we shared our lists with each other.  It was really special to see where our personal goals were really aligned and how we could support one another in what we were dreaming of.

Many people would think that list of goals and what I wanted to experience would be the same as my 2022 intentions, but they’re actually quite different. My intentions are the things that I’m committed to working on so that what I want to accomplish is actually possible. It’s my way of breaking the goals down into being more approachable.

How do I know what these things are? They’re the things that have been holding me back. The areas in my life where I feel resistance (like putting my phone down was for me this past year). The things I’m ready to work through so I can get to experience the things I’m dreaming about achieving. Here are my 2022 intentions:

•NO MORE COMPARING

I’m honestly embarrassed to tell you the hours I’ve wasted this year (and let’s be honest, throughout my entire life) on worrying about if I was doing as much as X person to support my business or if I was being as good of a mom as Y. I could have done so many things in that time. I could have written another course, helped another client, rested and relaxed, read a book (I wasted so much time I probably could have written a damn book), or connected with my son. I’ve spent way too much time worrying that…

1. boundaries around when I was on my phone would be considered lazy.
2. that if I wasn’t with West while I was with clients, I wasn’t a good enough mom as all the moms who spend all day with their kids.
3. or that if I didn’t talk about my offers a few times a week, the new followers on my account wouldn’t think I offered any value.

I’m so ready to let this heaviness GO. Not staying in my own lane has held me back from so much. It’s time for me to trust that what I’m sharing in my business, who I am as a wife and mom, is ENOUGH. No, they’re better than enough. They’re amazing for MY people.

•KNOWING WHAT I HAVE TO OFFER IS DAMN GOOD

The first one is a prerequisite for this to happen. I have to believe in myself and what I have to offer before anyone else does. I tell this to clients all the time and this year; I will use my actions to embody this. Tell it to myself every damn day. Busyness DOES NOT EQUAL MORE VALUE. I can do this by saying NO to everything that doesn’t feel in alignment with me.

Change like this is SCARY. But even since writing these down, the universe has already served me up with opportunities to act. Again, scary, but I’m so ready for it! The only way we can truly transform is through a little bit of discomfort, so bring on all of the challenges throughout this year. I know having the right support from Chad, my family, and friends is what’s going to make my accountability with myself possible.

If you want to set up intentions for 2022, here are some straightforward steps:

1. Let yourself dream BIG. What do you want to accomplish in 2022?
2. What beliefs, old habits, or behavior patterns held you back from achieving these things in 2021?
3. Based on your goals and past resistance, what intentions would feel good/challenging to set for yourself in 2022? What are you ready to commit to working on?
4. Notice when the opportunity to work on these things comes up, even if it feels challenging and it may be easier to shift back into your old ways of thinking / doing things, where can you take action?
5. Tell someone about it - you can’t do it all alone ♥️

From there, you can take some tangible steps to work on your goals by breaking them down into SMART goals:

1. Specific: State what you want to do exactly, keeping in mind who, what, where, and when
2. Measurable: If a goal can’t be measured, how will you know if you’ve achieved it?
3. Actionable: Your goal should be something that you can act on and know when that action is completed
4. Realistic: A goal should always be something reasonable for you to attain
5. Trackable: Did you or did you not do it? Being able to track your actions can help keep you motivated if you are doing a good job and can help motivate you if you have fallen off track.

A personal example for my business was wanting to increase web traffic by 25%. I wanted to do this because increasing my website traffic would increase my sales as long as my sales conversion rate remained relatively constant. When I set up this goal, it looked like this:

1. Specific: To increase the number of visitors that come to our site by 25%.
2. Measurable: Increase our annual visitors from 100,000 to 125,000.
3. Actionable: Breaking down this goal into smaller marketing and solid social media content creation strategies. We hired additional experts as needed to increase our visibility and our website traffic.
4. Relevant: The more traffic we have, the more money we make and the larger our reach.
5. Time-bound: We want to complete this goal by December 2022.

Sending you so much love as we move into this new year; everything you desire is available to you. It’s already within you, and I can’t wait to see what you do!!