It is that cycle-marking time of year. Like most, you may be taking an inventory of your life: deciding what to take with you, what to let go of, where you’re going and maybe even who you’re becoming. As you get ready to jot your New Year’s resolutions down in your diary, ask yourself: are they really going to help you make transformative change?
New Year’s resolutions originated over four millennia ago as a form of barter trade among the Babylonians. At the beginning of each year, they would make promises to their gods to repay their debts and return any borrowed objects in exchange for a blessed crop and good favour. The deal was clear and it was a pretty good bargain.
Early Christians then evolved resolution-setting into an occasion for contemplating about one’s past mistakes and resolving to do better. It may have looked good on papyrus, but it was certainly less gratifying.
At its core, intention-setting is about purpose
Now, we make resolutions only to ourselves. These are usually stringent verbal contracts focused on self-improvement with no external rewards whatsoever. It may explain why resolutions are so easy to make and infamously difficult to keep or, in some cases, even remember.
As a psychotherapist, I’ve seen clients set big, sweeping resolutions countless times, only to suffer burnout and give up within the first month. One of the main issues with resolutions is that they are often vague and unrealistic, sometimes made on a whim and mostly revolving around gigantic changes that seem desirable but are often too nebulous to achieve.
This year, consider a different form of making change in your life. Oprah Winfrey does it. Deepak Chopra believes in it. Andrew Huberman raves about it. What exactly is the superpower of intention-setting?
Finding your ‘why’
At its core, intention-setting is about purpose. While resolutions are focused on things we should or shouldn’t be doing and are often attached to external outcomes, intention-setting is an inward journey and ultimately less about doing and achieving than it is about being and becoming.
Intentions are guiding principles for how you want to be, what you want to experience in your life and how you intend to show up in the world. It’s about deciding what you want to add to your life, rather than what you want to cut out.
Intentions can be large (think: lifelong). ‘I intend to be the best partner I can be’, ‘I choose to take things less personally’ or, one of my favourites that has given me strength and discipline in trying times, ‘I choose courage over comfort’. Intentions can be small (monthly, weekly)—‘I will live more in the present moment’—or tiny (today or right now)—‘Today I commit myself to being an attentive father’—or even lighthearted—‘Today I will be playful’.
In his engaging book The Seat of the Soul, Gary Zukav, who introduced Oprah to the principle that now guides every part of her life, says: “An intention is not only a desire. It is the use of your will. Every action, thought and feeling is motivated by an intention and that intention is a cause that exists as one with an effect. Your intention is creating your reality.”
So, what happens if you are intention-less? You will be at the mercy of circumstances that arrive in your life, reacting thoughtlessly rather than responding mindfully. In other words, if you don’t intentionally define your purpose, society will tell you what it is and you will live your life accordingly.
The great Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung described it eloquently: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
The science behind intention
“A thought is not a thing; a thought is a thing that influences other things,” explains author Lynne McTaggart.
Setting intentions activates your reticular activation system (RAS), an automatic mechanism within the brain that brings relevant information to your attention. Think of the RAS as the filter between your conscious and subconscious mind. It takes instructions from your conscious mind and passes them on to your subconscious mind.
The RAS ensures that your eyes will see what your brain is looking for. Have you ever decided that you wanted to buy a certain car and shortly thereafter you see that exact car model everywhere? That’s your RAS at work.
“Intentions are about deciding what you want to add to your life, rather than what you want to cut out”
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word intent originated from the word intend, which means to direct the mind and proceed on course towards a goal. The word intend finds its origins in the Latin intendere, which means to stretch towards. The very fact that you use the words ‘I intend’ in setting your intentions sends a signal to your subconscious mind that you are in control and ‘expecting’ that event to happen in your near future, and that there is no room for uncertainty.
Should you decide, ‘I intend to deepen the connection in my relationships,’ your RAS will help to ensure you do so by directing your focus and attention to every opportunity to stretch towards your desired goal and intended future. You will automatically find yourself seeing and participating in more actionable opportunities to increase intimacy and deepen connection in your relationships, with your subconscious mind ensuring that you optimally fulfil what your conscious mind has instructed it to do.
I will never forget the first time I set an intention and created my own reality.
As a psychotherapist and mother, I am often guilty of carrying an enormous baggage from the emotions of others. A decade ago, my then-toddler was having a two-hour tantrum on the carpeted floor of a sophisticated airport. Unable to soothe him despite my best efforts, I felt like a failure at wits’ end.
In a clumsy attempt to remove myself from the crushing weight of the horrified stares of judgmental onlookers, I sat on a bench, closed my teary eyes, took a few deep breaths and repeated the first thought that came to mind like a cleansing mantra: ‘I am a good mother. I give myself permission to release all that is not mine to carry’.
In an instant, that incessant inner voice of mum-guilt was replaced by a wave of self-compassion. In a few minutes, I found myself recomposed, relieved and recharged. I got off the bench, knelt on the floor, enveloped my son in a bear hug and said: “I’m really sorry for being so impatient. Could we talk about it over breakfast at the cafe?”
Zukav wouldn’t have been surprised. After all, he believes intention-setting to be at “the heart of creating authentic power”. Perhaps, as you begin to take stock of the new year, you too might want to slow things down and hit the ground sitting as you take that initial step inwards, erase those resolutions and start thinking about your intentions.
Pre-order your copy of the January/February ‘Intentions’ issue of Vogue Singapore online or pick it up on newsstands from 11 January 2023.
