Now that the “Year of Roses” and the month of “December Delights” have come to a close (you can find all of those by simply searching for “roses” or “delights” in the search bar), I took a little time to sit quietly and think about both what I’d learned and where I wanted to go in this next year.
I don’t especially like New Year resolutions – there’s a lot of pressure there to revamp every aspect of your life and I know from bitter experience that taking on that much change is just too much for me. But last year – the “Year of Roses” – was all about taking intentional, small, frequent steps to lead to living my values on a daily basis, which led to establishing better habits. Even in the midst of a slap-you-silly year of change, it worked far more often than it didn’t. So I took some time to walk through a guided exercise to set my intention for this year. (Here’s a good resource on the difference between resolutions, goals, and intentions, along with some tips to help you get started.)
This year, I want to be kind to myself. This means many things and I’ll take small steps all throughout the year to get there. The code word this year is “joie,” and I want this to be a year of joy in all of her manifestations. I hope to be more adventurous in my cooking and eating, to try new things to get me moving, to say “yes” to stretching my mind through art and language, to keep up with journaling as an accountability measure, and (hopefully) to travel some as it becomes safe to do so. To get started on this year-long journey, I’ve downloaded this “joyspotter’s guide” – you might enjoy it, too.
My thoughtful review of the past year here on Splendor also revealed that I wanted to strike a happy medium between the monthly “Roses” posts and the daily “Delights” post, so I settled on a weekly schedule. New “Joie” posts will go up every Monday evening – I like the idea of setting my “joyful intention” at the start of the week and seeing where that takes me as the week moves past.
Please join me in seeking joy this year!
Joie!
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