Four Awesome Projects to Substitute for New Year’s Resolutions in 2020
For those (including me) who chronically over plan their year
It’s that time of the year. The time where most likely everyone is asking you what your new Year’s Resolution is. The time where you spend hours taking stock of your current life and what you want to be different this year.
It can be a stressful process, and if you’re anything like me, you over plan. You see everyone else’s list and all of a sudden 10 things look appealing to you. You forego the soul searching and sign up for six or seven ideals that seem perfect to you.
The year takes it’s toll on you. Your best laid plans go awry. Maybe you make it past the January 21st deadline, but you also get to the end of the year wondering what happened. You had such great expectations at the beginning of the year when you decided on a focus five or a focus 10, and the struggle of trying to keep those balls in the air plus live daily life proved to be too much.
I’m not advocating for not having dreams and goals. Living without vision kills. Goals and dreams are essential if we are going to grow as people. They are the fuel that keeps us going on the hard days.
However, being honest and realistic is also important. You could make 10 minor changes in a year or one major one, but sometimes you can’t do both.
The alternatives I’m listing below provide a great chance to grow, to change and to accept the year as it comes along, without the added stress of a bucket list of things to do.
Choose One
The one word project has been around for several years. It’s a project where you choose one guiding word for the year. The word can be a trait to develop, a desire that is close to your heart, or even just where you want to focus your time.
The one word challenge has a few side effects. Once you decide on a word for the year, life will give you situations to develop it and test it.
For example, the year that I decided to focus on the word love was the year that one of my best friends moved four hours away and a friend that I had known since birth died before Christmas. It was an opportunity to remember what they had taught me about love, but the loss didn’t seem less painful.
That word will become ingrained on your heart and mind for the year. It will be the word that guides your decisions, that confronts you, and that determines your path. It will be the question that pops in your head when you don’t know which way to go. “Is this love?” “What way shows love?” “How can I make room for more love to be let into my life and reflected in my actions?” These are all questions that I had to face time and time again during my year of love.
Themed Years
There are countless memoirs about the years that people have chosen a theme to work through. Titles like The Year of Less (by Cait Flanders), The Year of Yes(by Shonda Rhimes)and The Happiness Project (by Gretchen Rubin) often spark interest. What would it be like to live with a year of less consumerism? A year where you allow yourself to say yes to the things that call to your heart? A year where you focus on your own happiness?
Is there a similar project calling to you? A project with a broad overhead theme that you can dive into?
On the other hand, is the format of one of these years calling to you? You can always tweak the framework or the premise to put your own spin on it.
It’s during these years that we have an opportunity to examine our values, change things in our everyday lives and experiment with a project that speaks to our heart.
In lieu of not over-committing, maybe choose one additional year long goal while doing a project. However, this project is a year long project unto itself. It focuses and shapes our years, often in a way where we can align it with life’s other demands.
A Year of 30 Day Challenges
For each month of the year, choose one 30 day project and commit to doing it daily. It can be of a level of difficulty that is up to your choosing and can be an easy part of your day.
Challenges can range from something relatively easy to greater difficulty. Allowing yourself to choose a year of 30 day challenges allows you to try something that may or may not work itself into your life. It allows for curiousity and experimentation.
If you end up finding benefit to one or more of the challenges, incorporate them into your everyday life. Keep going even after the 30 days are over. If you find that the challenge was just not for you, no big deal. You tried something, learned something new and realized it wasn’t for you.
The Bucket List
This one is meant to be just for fun. It’s taken various forms over the year, from 52in52 (from DayOne) to 21 Before 21. It’s a list of things that you think would be fun to try or want to get done in the year ahead.
The benefit here is that whatever number you choose, it limits you to that number. You also can see how things work together. If you have too many larger goals, maybe it’s time to change them into smaller goals. If all goals are small, would you want to do a larger one?
This is the first year that I’m not overloading my resolution plate with tons of ideas. I’m committed to experiment with the second type of challenge. I’m doing a year of happiness which will break areas of my life by month.
I’m done idealizing the perfect year and then expecting that perfection to compete with the things that life will give me over 2020. Maybe you are too. Let’s make this a year of focus, of growth without all of the extra.
