Setting Intentions For Personal Growth Towards Authentic Self
I may be a little late to the new year new intentions party, but it is still January of a brand new year. 2024! Wow! Rather than creating new year’s resolutions that are all too quickly forgotten or given in to as the days go by, I took the first couple weeks of this new year and reflected. A lot. This year I decided to set new intentions for personal growth towards becoming my authentic self in the next phase of my life.
For some, it is a time to remind ourselves what we need to focus on and for setting goals, using the beginning of a new year as a fresh start to forgive ourselves for what we have lacked and set our sights on what we hope we are able to stick with going forward. I think all too often we set higher and higher expectations on ourselves when we have rarely been able to fulfill those set in the past. Sometimes these shortcomings weigh on us as perceived failures and do the opposite of what was intended when we took the time to lay them out for ourselves in the first place.
Let’s not do that to ourselves this year. If nothing else, can we please just focus on the whole? The whole person we are striving to become takes constant effort…INTENTION.
The whole? Rather than a few things we want to try to better, you say? Seems like A LOT!
If we really pause for a moment and let this concept of our ‘whole self’ sink in, it is… and is not a lot. It is simply the total of our being, who we are and who are becoming. We need to wrap our mind around the fact that this will never be perfected. We will not, and should not desire to, get to some point when we have finished… or achieved…or found…our end point. We are in a constant state of change, of growth, towards becoming our authentic self.
I guess my point is, focusing on the whole self isn’t a lot because it is simply us everyday of our lives as we live the best we can without too much worry on successes and failures. More importantly, we should focus on simply being and working towards becoming the person we want to be. It is moving forward each and every moment, even when that means not physically moving at all. Some days we just need a break, and that’s ok too. As my mom told me yesterday when I said I was not accomplishing much just lounging around in my sweats (which I rarely do), “you know, it’s ok to do that! You have to have those days sometimes too.”
We can look at different life stages as a kind of metamorphosis. This, to me, implies that once this process is complete we will exist as something new… Maybe we do as we grow and change over the years and stages of our life, but I think we are constantly evolving.
As we reach this middle ground of life we can become overwhelmed with everything hitting us from all directions at once. We must have a paradigm shift, a change of perspective. This is not a point to reach and then poof…that’s it… now we are on the downhill slide. Did we accomplish what we wanted? Do we make enough money? Are we settled and where we thought we’d be? This doesn’t matter. We aren’t finished.
We are just beginning a whole new part of our journey that could very likely be longer than the journey to get us here. There is no end point. We are completely free to continue personal growth and constant change from now until the day we are no more. Let’s remind ourselves of that often and never stop evolving into our authentic self. I think we will just continue to become more authentically us as the years go by.
Setting intentions
So…back to those intentions. I decided during my pause to reflect and ponder the future always ever so quickly upon me that I would like to set some new intentions for my future self, intentions for my personal growth.
I think we all set specific goals, things we would like to change, do better at, or accomplish, but INTENTIONS seem less specific somehow to me. They are the more general ideas of things that I would like to seek to become more a part of who I am and how I live my life in total, those which will help me feel more like I am living my life as I should, more who I am at my core.
We often lose that as we go through life, working hard, being caregivers, filling all our roles trying to do all things and often feeling like we aren’t doing anything quite right. We lose our self in there somewhere along the way. Beyond that, we let those little intricate parts of us that make us WHO we are, uniquely us, slip too far under the surface.
Also along the way, we realize there are new details we would like woven into who we are that we may never have even thought about before. After all, we are constantly growing and changing. With experience in life comes exposure to new things and new desires blossom. We need to pay attention to that new awareness and let it guide our future journey.
Of course everyone should set their own intentions based on ALL of this… who you’ve been and the direction you long to travel as you continue your journey. I will be sharing a few of my newly set intentions going into this new year and hopefully well beyond. My hope is that they may give you pause and inspire you to think about what yours will be, knowing that even by thinking about them you are giving yourself much deserved attention and acknowledging the person inside you who longs to truly begin living.
To ponder what your own intentions for your future growth will be think about how you would answer questions like:
How can I live more like “me”?
What have I lost of myself along my journey?
Are there things that I used to be passionate about or love to do that I have stepped away from and miss?
What is important to me, but may be lacking?
How do I, or how have I identified myself? What makes me uniquely me?
In other words, if you were to try to tell someone else about yourself what would you want them to know? Do you have things that you are passionate about to share with others?
Are you happy with your answers to questions like these?
1 Quiet the voices that don’t serve my purpose
We hear voices constantly. Even in complete silence they are there. The voices of the past, the voices of the future, those that have hurt us, those that doubt us and shame us. The voice we hear the most is our own. It is 24/7 non-stop. It is the voice of self-doubt that prevents us from taking the risks we need to, from having the fun we want to, from being our authentic self for fear of how others will perceive us. This negative self talk not only stymies our potential personal growth, but can be damaging for our self esteem, our relationships, and over all mental health and well being. How many times have you listened to that voice and decided you weren’t doing enough, change wasn’t happening when you wanted it to, you weren’t successful in your goal and decided to give up?
I have set the intention to quiet the voices of self-doubt and any others that I hear repeated in my head. Sometimes they are just imaginary reactions of someone else to something that hasn’t even happened yet. These are what make me question myself and everything I imagine to be possible for myself. If we can use our own mental fortitude and determination in serious effort, I believe we can change the negative self talk to that of optimism, hope and courage. We can shut out the voices of others that don’t serve our purpose. Only in developing this strength will we be able to move on to becoming the person we most want to be.
2 Rediscover Myself In a Forward Moving Direction
This one sounds complicated. What do I mean? How can I “re-discover”, implying something that existed in the past, and “move forward” at the same time? It is really quite simple. I am setting the intention to allow some of the little details of myself that I liked in my past, things that I was happy to share or identify with, but have let slip too far beneath the surface come back into the light. This includes a wide range of things from listening to my music that makes me happy and trying to go see live music again more to planning camping trips and getting back to nature in a simple and pure way. Our vacations have become wonderful. We stay in beautiful houses or very nice hotel rooms. We don’t need to camp out and be uncomfortable. That’s just it though, the experience of doing that in the past added joy and a depth to me and allowed for deeper connections with those going through the experience with me. I love waking up to a view from a big comfy bed, don’t get me wrong! But the view of the river flowing through the field or the sunrise over the ocean when you unzip your tent is absolutely amazing!
These returning to yourself moments could be anything for you. What have you missed? What did you give up when you had your little ones that you can begin rediscovering as they are getting older now?
The forward moving direction is taking these details of who we are that we are re-connecting with and adding that layer back in as we continue on our journey. Bringing something of us back to the surface to add depth and beautiful layers onto our canvas, an added brightness where our masterpiece was beginning to dull, and letting that be part of us as we move forward into the next phase of our life as we grow. It is never too late.
This brings me to my own personal biggest challenge intention.
3 Rebel Against What Defines Me
This may sound contradictory at first. As I write about finding myself and becoming the most authentic version of who I want to be, now I throw in, ok, now rebel against who I am? Not quite. I am setting the intention to move forward from this point in my life in a new direction. Redefine myself. Like we just decided above: It is never too late. No longer wanting to be defined by the same terms and ideas of me that I have collected over my journey (not all of them anyway, and not some of the big ones), it is time to shift how people perceive me in a few ways. One example: working to allows others to see me as a positive light who lifts them up. I have always wanted to be this for others, but have tended to be thought of as serious and somewhat withdrawn (others often perceive introverts differently than we see ourselves). I am setting the intention to change this perception of me by trying to let go of some of that which weighs on me, being more positive in my words and actions and helping to lift others’ weight off them by shining positive light their way, lifting them up as well.
Most importantly, I am choosing to alter my career path. I do not feel I personally identify with my work. My job does not define me. Yet, anytime I meet someone I am inevitably asked what I do…Well, I DO a lot of things. Oh, you mean for work?…I am a real estate agent. I sell homes. In the most positive language, I help people through one of the largest decisions, transitions and purchases of their life. There is nothing wrong with this work. I enjoy building relationships with my clients and helping them find the perfect home, but feel I have more to accomplish for my growth….unfinished business. The harder part to explain is that I do not wish to identify myself in this way any longer, at least not ONLY as this.
It goes beyond the label.
The Why
I earned a Master’s Degree in Anthropology. My focus in graduate school was Sustainable Development and Political Ecology. My interest was in working with marginalized and displaced people in developing nations to help them have a voice in their future as they navigate integration into the modern globalized world. That was a long time ago. I didn’t do it. I had a baby as I was writing my thesis and grant proposals to go do field research then stayed home for a few years looking for a job in my field that was not forthcoming without the “job experience”. After a move from Colorado to Florida, real estate became the best option that was flexible enough with two babies by then and a husband gone more than half the time. I literally got into the world that was about the opposite of what I had spent years of my life learning and planning to be a part of. Again, nothing wrong with being in real estate. It just simply is not who I think of myself as being. It is not how I want to identify myself. I am 46 years old now. It is time that I find my place where I feel at home and am happy to tell everyone what I do. Right now…not so much. I shrink away when asked what I do for work when my job literally depends on telling as many people as I can. I’m not entirely certain why, but in this industry I am connecting with and telling them what I do in effort to get their business and I have never been comfortable with this. I guess it come down to the fact that although I am as honest as possible always (to a fault at times), I do not feel authentically me in this role.
Why continue on a path that is so important in your life that you are not comfortable on? There are so many options, so many open roads to travel down. Why get stuck on one that doesn’t serve your authentic self?
I have decided not to. It is scary. I fear putting myself out there. I fear failing. I am working towards starting my own business, one that I am passionate about. It will not be easy or quick, but my hope is that along with the hard work and vulnerability will come a sense of purpose and self fulfillment. I won’t get rich, but I will be proud and happy to tell everyone that I am a business owner and while I may still be selling something (providing may be the better term, but let’s keep it real, we have to sell what we provide to earn a living), I will be proud of my product because it will be authentic and mine. (I’ll keep you posted in future posts!)
Redefine Yourself
How would you choose to redefine yourself? If you are in middle age as I am, or even not here yet but going through your own transition in life, you may be finding that some of the terms others use to describe or define you aren’t really those that you feel you want to define you. You may wish to go forward living some different traits outwardly that you have kept hidden lately, or develop and nurture new ones. It may simply be time for change and growth.
We all need to shine our light out into the world. It takes effort to find how to do this, how to be authentic, true to ourself. All of our years up until this point are largely spent trying to get somewhere, to fit in, to attain, to succeed. In order to meet these goals we must adapt and either get put in a box or allow ourselves to be molded into a certain form. As the years go by that box becomes really really small. We have grown and evolved and the mold is like an old cast that is getting really itchy and uncomfortable. We long to escape. We must break out of it. This is our becoming. Moving in a new forward direction with the pieces of ourself that we have developed, evolved and loved fueling the journey, as we learn to leave behind all of the pieces that have become worn, tired and broken over the years. They no longer serve us on our journey. Rebel against that which has come to define you in ways that are not you. Rebel like you did as a teenager when you wouldn’t let others or society define who you were.
Be who are are at any moment of any day. Just you. Ever changing, growing, evolving you.
4 SPEND MORE TIME OUTSIDE
I know this one seems super simple; let me explain. It is. I like to be outside. Throughout my entire life many of my most peaceful and memorable moments have been outside, from growing up going in the woods, playing in the creek, and riding bikes as a little girl to hiking, camping, sitting on the front porch soaking in autumn writing in my journal as a teen, to always sitting outside under a big tree on campus in college to eat my lunch. Even with babies I would take them to the park and on long walks, hikes in the hills, summertime spent at the beach and on and on….BUT NOW I am no longer outside enough.
When I reflect on what brings me contentment, peace and perhaps even joy, I realize most of this comes when I am outside in fresh air. Just the feel of a breeze against my skin and sunshine on my face has ALWAYS made my heart smile. I went from spending hours a day enjoying that to limiting myself to a brief pause when I step outside with my dog or to walk across a parking lot. I have come to feel “trapped” inside even though I am free to go out whenever I would like. My absolute favorite moments are when I spend longer periods outside, mostly when we are traveling, even though I live in Florida where people literally come from all over the country to be outside year round.
No need to explain here why this has come to be for me personally, but a good place to explain why it is so important. I always feel a pull to be outside. It is my belief this is because it is naturally inherent in us as humans who evolved outside in nature and we are simply not “meant” to be inside most of our lives as many of us now are.
Research backs up my perceived need to be outside more.
Articles published by UCDavis, Healthline, The American Psychological Association and a very thorough scientific peer reviewed article, “Associations Between Nature Exposure and Health: A Review of the Evidence” published by the NIH all agree that “being outside and experiencing nature can improve our mental health and increase our ability to focus.” Essentially our minds and bodies relax and are restored when we spend time outside. We are often overstimulated inside. The air quality is lacking. We tend to be more sedentary indoors. When we spend time outside we gain cognitive and mental health benefits as well as physical benefits. We literally breathe better, experience improved sleep from sunlight affecting our circadian rhythm, have reduced symptoms of depression, and experience mental restoration with increased perception of general well being, including a sense of meaning and purpose in life. We experience decreased stress and an increase in mental clarity and focus.
This is also, or maybe especially, true for children. These articles site a huge study done in Denmark with children over a long period of time that demonstrated that those who have more green spaces in their communities have a significantly reduced risk of mental illness later in life, as in those with the lowest levels of green space had a 55% higher risk of developing mental illness!
It makes perfect sense that I feel the negative impacts of spending too much time inside as I have felt jumbled and scattered, heightened frustration, anxious and stressed. I have felt like something is missing. It may be as simple as getting outside to enjoy the sun on my face and the breeze against my skin again. For my intention, spending more time outside will bring me closer to myself, the person who I want to be, and will allow me to feel more like I am living the life I want in getting out and having more experiences in nature, as that has always been so important to me and something I have lost sight of in these last very busy years of my life.
My intention is to spend more time outside both alone (don’t not go on the walk or drive out to the beach because no one else wants to go!) and with my family (because getting them all outside more will clearly benefit them as much as myself!). We can go on bike rides together, go find a trail to walk in the woods, grab some kayaks and hit the water, or even just walk the dog together or go to the park for sunset. Not only will we benefit from connecting more with nature, but also experience connectedness to each other
5 MORE QUALITY FAMILY TIME
This one isn’t as much as about delving into discovering the person I most want to be, but goes right along with that. My family is largely my life. No matter how much I focus on growing my authentic self, they are now a part of me and will forever be a part of who I am. There was life before them. I was a different person in many ways. I can pull from my former self and delve back into details of who I was before my family, but there are now so many more intricacies of me as they have become woven into my being. My experiences as a mother and a wife are now so many of my puzzle pieces fitting together, along with my own intricate details, that each contribute the person I am becoming.
Why is it so important to spend the time together?
As our life gets busy in these years of raising kids, working hard, experiencing overwhelming stressors and frustration, we tend to not only lose ourselves, but as the years go on we even lose the connections we have with these most important people in some ways. The kids get older and have their own worlds. They have early mornings and busy schedules. We are always going in different directions. In our house we have a dad who is traveling for work about half of the time and now a middle schooler and high schooler. Everyone is on their own devices too much of the time even when we are together. I know everyone can relate to this.
It is time to pull back together. We have too few years left with our high schooler in the house. The time is passing so quickly. I am setting the intention that we spend more time together as a family, specifically having new experiences and getting outside more. For me, this intention includes family dinners every night that we can and getting back to family movie nights! We used to watch movies together all the time when they were younger. Now, each kid often splits off into different rooms after dinner (often to do homework…). We rarely all sit together in the living room anymore. I know there can’t be an expectation to do this A LOT, but I am hoping for one night a month that we all sit down together with bowls of popcorn and enjoy just sitting in the same space connected through our common stimulus rather than each on our own. Along with this, we will also be requiring more device free hours each evening for our kids.
Our family experiences have historically revolved around eating and drinking…We like to go eat at our favorite spots and seek out new ones. This is always enjoyable, but there needs to be a shift. Quality time can certainly be spent around a table enjoying food, but I imagine more experiences out DOING and seeing new things, like more visits to museums, nature hikes, paddle boarding (that will bring some laughs!), learning new things and getting out of our comfort zone here and there. Getting creative. Having fun. Making memories.
Of course there is also much evidence that shows how beneficial it is for families to spend time together and especially for teens to spend time with their families. These benefits are similar to the connecting with nature benefits: improved mental health, improved physical health, and reduced stress, but adding benefits of better social/peer skills, heightened self esteem, conflict resolution, and much more
6 CONSUME LESS
This is an intention I am setting for my whole family going forward that also gets me a little closer to the person I always thought I would be, but have let slip in my more recent adult years. We consume on a massive scale. This should go right along with my previous intention to spend more quality time out and about versus eating and drinking. Experience more and consume less. In this world of teenage kids and social media, adults who are at a stage in life that has become way too comfortable (as we largely have the ability to have much of what we want in the form of consumable goods), and everyone being busy, on the go with the perceived need of convenience, we consume more than we should.
Mass consumption in not only not sustainable environmentally or financially, it is mentally toxic I believe. It brings feelings of shame and guilt. It clutters our environment and our minds and mental state. I have always found that when I strive to live more simply, with less, I am happier. We have created these unhealthy habits of wanting to make sure we have everything at all times, stocking things away, storing too much just in case, throwing out and getting new when the old is just fine. This all weighs on us. It also costs A LOT of money! Everything has gotten so expensive that we can’t just get new all the time or get the variety when one will do. Our expenses keep going up and our paychecks seem to get smaller and smaller (at least what is left of them after the expenses are paid).
Mass consumption also teaches horrible habits to our kids. They begin to feel entitled to have all of these things that they really don’t need. They say all their friends have it, or the social media following makes it seem that way anyway. We try to teach our kids the value of things and that it will take a lot of work in life to continue to have them. I also try to teach my kids that they don’t in fact NEED everything they come to me with, “Mom! I NEED x, y, z…!” I think these lessons fall on deaf ears at this point in their lives. This gets me to LEAD BY EXAMPLE, which is always an intention. Sometimes it happens and other times they are told not do do what they see, which is kind of unfair, but thus is life, for a kid gaining freedoms but…not yet an adult.
7 Create and Foster A Community Around Me
I keep hearing (mostly from my husband) and reading (on a variety of sources) that as we get older one of the most important factors in our sense of well being, our health and our longevity is having close social connections. Beyond having friends, we need to have meaningful friendships and spend time with people we genuinely enjoy being with. Ideally, we have a community of love and support around us that we share our journey with in meaningful ways. As a reserved introvert I have always struggled a bit with this. I have friends, but moved often when I was younger and found it difficult to build this lasting community around me. My husband has all of his best friends from high school and beyond. They are still a tight knit friend group who get together regularly and genuinely love and support each other. This is an amazing group of people whom I feel so lucky to also be a part of. The problem is we do not live close enough to have this community around us in our daily lives. We travel a couple of times a year to spend time with them. Each time we do, I feel a sense of belonging and love that brings me peace and joy.
Ideally, we have connections with people we share common interests and thoughtful conversations with, identify with, and hopefully develop lasting, loving bonds with. I have some wonderful people in my life. My intention going forward is to build and grow this community around me , to connect new people together, and most importantly to feel a sense of belonging, that I truly am loved and appreciated and to ensure that the other members of this community also feel that love and appreciation . Our community should be one that does not judge or make us feel guilty or bad about ourselves. It should be one that lifts us up, inspires us, and pushes us forward on our path of growth in positive ways.
This intention begins right here with Daydreams & Ponderings. My sincere wish is to grow this community, to bring us together to share our experiences, learn from each other, support each other, and grow to develop bonds that will enrich our lives and help us each grow in positive ways forward.
Please pass this, or any of my posts that you identify with, along to a friend or to your special community and help me grow this one in wonderful and amazing ways!
Also, I would LOVE it if you would comment or send me an email to let me know your thoughts, your new intentions, if I have given you anything to think about or to share anything at all of your journey with me. We each have much to offer and much to learn.
About Daydreams & Ponderings
A lifestyle blog that goes deeper. A space for us to come together to share life experiences, thoughts, dreams, and maybe some ramblings.
Posts on family & relationships, personal health & wellness, travel, beauty, food & cocktails and all of our daydreams and ponderings.
