The Best of Intentions

There are many benefits to resolution and goal setting, in both our personal and professional lives. In a recent Forbes article by Tracy Brower titled, “4 Reasons to Make New Year’s Resolutions (Even If You Don’t Keep Them),” the author notes that honesty about your current situation is the key to improvement. If you don’t know your baseline, how will you be able to measure results? 

The next step is creating an attainable plan that can give you hope for a more positive outcome or experience. Our team has had a lot of success setting S.M.A.R.T. goals – an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound – to set both personal and team goals, acting as accountability partners for each other. By breaking larger intentions into smaller, specific goals that are more within reach, we set ourselves up for greater success.

And that success is very worthwhile! As Tracy Brower explains, the benefits of intention setting in your life can begin to multiply: “Your resolution to get healthy will keep you around longer for your family and friends. Your resolution to stop procrastinating will contribute to a positive team dynamic with your co-workers. And your plans to do more volunteer work at the community garden will help feed people in your locale…resolutions are terrific ways to focus on yourself, but also consider your broader responsibility – and to expand and multiply your positive effects on others.”

When making my own 2022 goals, I heard someone say in a podcast, “You can’t be creative if you’re always playing catch-up.” That clicked, way down deep inside me. I was struck by how much that rang true, and by how this obvious statement was exactly what I needed to hear. 

At the time, I had been too overwhelmed by my recent relocation to Austin from L.A., from the holidays, and from kid wrangling to even hold space for growth. But as I was listening to these words – while loading the dishwasher at 11 pm after a particularly tough day (aka playing catch-up) – I knew that this had to be my goal this year; to leave space in my life, both personally and professionally. And to be proactive, fun, and creative because the chronic stress of reactivity is not conducive to growth.

Here are some other intentions goals, and resolutions that our team members at KNow are working on this year: 

• Taking better physical care of myself to prevent burnout
• Tapping more into creativity and finding inspiration
• Prioritizing complex projects over simply putting out fires
• Delineating time on my calendar so people know I’m doing focused work
• Bringing more time and space for pausing, creativity, and rejuvenation into my life, in 3 forms: more meditation, more walking, and more whitespace. The last one is a new addition to my usual aspiration list, inspired by Juliet Funt’s recommended read titled A Minute to Think
• Meditation to help with my focus, ability to prioritize what’s important, and to better cope/manage those unexpected curveballs of life (including at work!)
• Committing to a “beginner’s mindset”!
• Improving my financial literacy
• Finding one thing to do that I do just for fun, and just for myself. Not consulting, not volunteering, nothing obligatory. I used to be a person who made things, and I miss that! Time to get it back.
• Spending less time on my phone and reading more books. Trying to get my ’90s brain back!

While we will work on these goals in some form or another our whole lives, it’s important to have intentions set for ourselves, concrete ideas to help us on our journeys, and a team of accountability partners to help us get there!

What are your intentions, resolutions, or goals for 2022? Do you have supportive accountability partners to help keep you on track? March is a good time to check-in and rev up those resolutions, so reach out and reap the benefits!