Happy New Year! Despite it being February already, I still wanted to share my annual New Year post, which has become a blogging tradition for me.  In fact, this is my fifth New Year’s post!  (Click to read 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023).  Typically I spend some time at the end of December planning my intentions for the coming year, but due to the busyness of the holiday season, I ran behind. I listened to  The Next Right Thing podcast where host Emily P. Freeman declared that “January was the new week between Christmas and New Years.”  I appreciated that permission to shift my mindset and take a little extra time to breathe.  Rather than cramming in some quick intention setting during the last week of December, I instead took time to slow down in January to reflect on 2023 and think about my hopes for 2024. Each year my process of goal setting looks a bit different and my hopes and dreams shift slightly, but I still appreciate the tradition and the time to prepare myself for another new year.   

As I reflected on the past year, I thought about my 2023 goal to “just be” and to very intentionally not set big goals.  I spent a lot of time last year trying to focus my energy back into the moment and to really take the time to enjoy and appreciate the fun aspects of my life.  I am thankful for this goal, for the permission to slow down, and for the opportunity to experience how challenging but also rewarding it can be to live in the moment.  As I thought about my possible 2024 intention, I debated about just continuing with my 2023 goal, skipping my new year journaling all together.  After all, I still have plenty to learn about mindfulness and enjoying time to simply be.  But, as I began to settle into January, I decided it was still worth taking a little bit of time to consider some hopes and dreams for 2024. 

As it turns out, I am still a dreamer.  I enjoyed allowing myself time to think about the “big” things I could hope for and plan around, like the next steps for my career, my family, my health, my faith, my writing.  As I contemplated future goals, I also took time to read through previous year’s intentions. It was fun and interesting to consider previous goals and intentions, what has come to fruition, what I have changed my mind about, what I still have hopes for, and how it has all influenced my life.  I found myself thankful for so much and also hopeful for the future. 

As I reflected on my tradition of annual intention and goal setting, I realized that my process has changed over the years, notably that I feel a lot more settled and content with life when I daydream and plan now. I believe part of this has resulted from my 2023 intentional goal to slow down and enjoy more moments.  But, partly I think it has also been the result of a continuous mindset shift of realizing that my self-worth and value doesn’t hinge on my ability to be successful at achieving certain goals, to turn every dream into reality.  As a social worker, I spend a lot of time caring for others exactly as they are, meeting them where they are at in life, valuing them for just being themselves.  I make the intentional choice to prioritize caring about them first, rather than wait until they meet a certain list of expectations.  I wrote about this approach in my post “Already Awesome,” a truth I believe is inherent in the people I work with, and is also true in myself.  I find that this mindset is helpful when I establish and pursue my annual goals: I am thankful for who I am now and at the same time I am also thankful for who I may someday be.  As simple as this sounds, it is a work in progress.  There are days where I feel this self-acceptance deeply, and there are other days where I wish I could be anybody but the current version of myself.  There are days where I can dream without self-judgment and then there are other days where I feel disappointed in myself for not meeting a goal or being in the next stage of an intention.  As always, I am still learning and growing, and leaning into grace as I navigate all of these things.

Which brings me to my intention for 2024: to continue my 2023 goal of enjoying the moment while also centering on judgment-free dreaming about the things I want to continue to develop or change in my life. I think allowing myself to reincorporate dreaming and planning for the future is important because it is part of who I am. Yet, I will be cognizant to not allow my daydreams to interfere with enjoying each day.  When I think about it, it makes sense, this goal for both being in the moment and dreaming about the future, because today’s moments are a result of dreams from previous years.  And, the dreams I have today will, hopefully, lead to future moments to be thankful for.  I wish you all the best as we continue this new year.  Happy 2024!

Jessica is a wife, mom, school social worker, and writer.  She is co-author of the blog The Unexpected Ever Afters.

Photo credit: personal photo