Taking Tension Out of Setting a Yearly Intention

By Dorian Martin, I Start Wondering Founder

As we enter the last two weeks of the year, I want to give you a present. It isn’t in a box wrapped up and tied with a bow; it won’t be delivered to your home. But I find this gift to be very valuable and yet very simple. It is one that has sustained me for more than a decade: my process for developing a guiding annual intention.

You might be saying, “Dorian, I am too stressed right now by deadlines and all that is going on in the world. I don’t have time or energy to learn about how to set a yearly intention right now. I have to finish buying and wrapping presents, getting ready for the family, making cookies.”

Yes, true! But what if I told you that you can accomplish all of these tasks while also figuring out which direction you want to guide your life for the next annum. And as you begin to consider the options, you also can begin to gently steer your life in the direction you want to go. 

Intention vs. Resolution

Let’s get clear on what I’m talking about. The better-known New Year’s Resolutions are specific goals that often need an action plan to attain. It’s deciding that in the New Year, you’re going to lose 20 pounds, run a 5K by July, have a perfectly organized and alphabetized spice rack, or whatever that “it” is that you want to achieve. Then, you take appropriate steps to reach that goal. 

Resolutions are great for providing a singular focus but also can be thrown off due to external factors that you can’t control: a sudden illness, a family emergency, a job loss, etc. In my experience, resolutions also can lead to negative self-talk that leads to shame, guilt and anger for a perceived lack of dedication.

In comparison, an intention offers an individualized North Star that serves as an annual guide. Instead of a hard-and-fast resolution that focuses on one area, a thoughtfully identified intention can actually inform multiple areas of life and help you weather life’s unanticipated storms. I’ve used one word selected for a 365-day period to regularly help me navigate eldercare, career, relationship and personal decisions that emerge in the present moment.

A Case Study

A little over a decade ago, I came into December exhausted from the various responsibilities around my father’s caregiving, graduate school, work deadlines and trying to meet societal expectations. At the same time, social media and marketers had started the annual drumbeat about making New Year’s Resolutions. 

Frankly, I had no energy for making major resolutions at that point, but I still wanted to mark the start of a new cycle. That’s when I hit upon my own formula: a New Year’s intention. My hypothesis was that if I could select a word that resonated with the direction I wanted to go in life, I could use that word as a compass to inform my decisions.

In 2015, my chosen word was “completion” since at that time, I had too many irons in the fire. At that point, I needed to mindfully stem my tendency to search out and add new things and, instead, focus on closing out old chapters. 

Using the idea of completion, I finished the required edits on my dissertation to complete graduate school and fully transitioned my father from living in my home to assisted living. Both were major chapters in my life that required me to commit and completely focus in order to bring them to completion. 

Setting an intention also offered a measure of flexibility to meet whatever arose in the moment that I had no control over. In 2015, my father had shifts both in residence and in health status. Those weren’t predictable at the start of the year, but because I had an intention that created a sense of flexibility, I could deal with the hand I was dealt while also making progress on my own priorities.

And I also kept coming back to the concept “completion” in other ways throughout what I dubbed as my “fallow year.” As these larger commitments began to fall away, I practiced taking a beat to consider (instead of immediately agreeing) to these incoming ideas, invitations, events, volunteer opportunities, or other types of commitments. I asked myself whether I wanted to rapidly fill in the recently opened space in my life created by the completions. More often than not, my honest answer was no.

Making Gentle Progress

I’ve found that this approach to creating an annual intention has proven to be transformative for me, leading to more movement and progress than a single-minded goal that often gets thrown out within a month or two.  In fact, research has found that slightly more than 50% of individuals who made resolutions felt they achieved their goals. While there are lessons in these unrealized experiences, I have reached a point where I no longer feel the need to create and publicize resolutions to perform just to measure up.

Some research suggests that creating meaningful intentions can prove to be beneficial, but just setting an intention isn’t enough. Noting the gap that can emerge between setting an intention and actual action, the authors of a 2015 study wrote, “‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’ is a popular proverb that illustrates a potential obstacle during action control: people may form adequate intentions but fail to translate these intentions into action.”

Yet, I’ve found there’s a gift in that gap through creating an invitation to explore the broader meaning of the intention and then figuring out how to apply it. While a formal written action plan hasn’t been part of my modus operandi, I have found ways to reinforce my commitment to an intention. My yearly intentions have come into play in my reading, listening, and social media choices as well as conversations and personal contemplation times. Together, these explorations have given me new insights that I’ve used to apply my intention. 

I also incorporate the selected word in strategic places around my home where I can be reminded of it regularly and in my daily journaling practice. I started each 2025 journal entry with “Year of Sovereignty (Part 2) and Subtheme of Sustainability” to keep my intention top of mind and have included regular check-ins to see how I’m doing. Some of my ponderings this year have centered around whether I’m sustainably using my physical, mental, and emotional energy or have become codependent in ways that drain my energy. I also have kept sustainability on my radar in regard to my financial decisions, food choices, home environment, and even training my dog, Hero.

As a result, I have discovered that setting an intention offers an important opportunity to exercise personal integrity (relying on your own moral compass) instead of relying on accountability (focusing on external feedback). To that end, I find that creating an intention invites me to listen more deeply to my own inner wisdom instead of being at society’s whim. I’m learning to trust my intuition instead of continually being on call to outside “authorities” recommending the annual run for gym membership or healthy dining subscription services.

As an added plus, creating an intention provides a way to explore the concept of “being” instead of the American compulsion for “doing.” By picking a

word such as “nurture” or “balance” (which I selected in previous years), I found myself on a different yet kinder and gentler path in life that was still meaningful to me. And I learned that it was okay — and frankly, healthier —to open up space in my once-packed to-do list for meandering, contemplation, and creativity.

So, are you ready to join me in setting an intention for 2026?? If so, take a look at this downloadable guide I developed to help guide you in creating your individualized intentions. Let’s do this! 

Free How to Select a Yearly Intention Download