Goodbye, New Year’s Resolutions.
Hello, Aligned Intentions!
Are you tired of setting new year’s resolutions that don’t come to fruition?
What if you establish aligned intentions and adopt practices that fill your body, mind, and soul instead?
Mindfulness is all about being present, honouring your values, and living in alignment with those principles. This integrity supports your physical and mental health and your connection with yourself and others, allowing you to focus on what matters to you vs. what the world is telling you to do.
Need some guidance to embrace more mindfulness in 2023?
Here are some tips, practices, and resources to adopt mindfulness qualities and fulfill your life.
1) How to Be Meaning-Full
- Do a value assessment exercise — Identify, review, and reexamine your values regularly.
- Align your activities, habits, tools, and attitudes with those values — For example, if one of your values is movement, you can sign up for a group class, adopt a new habit of walking daily, get new exercise gear, or make a fun workout playlist.
2) How to Be Mind-Full
Try mindfulness planning tools or activities to envision your intentions for the new year according to your values:
- Practice a mindful exercise to reflect on your purpose and set clear goals and intentions.
- Create a digital or physical vision board to visualize them.
- Get a mindful planner, an intention planner, or a goal-setting app to track your progress and stay accountable.
3) How to Be Joy-Full
- Keep a joy journal — Write one thing that brings you joy daily (e.g., a funny joke, your kid’s smile, or a friend’s message).
- Turn your joy journal into a joy or happiness jar — Transfer each thing/activity to a piece of paper, put them in a jar, and pull one every day to revisit these happy moments.
4) How to Be Peace-Full
- Respond vs. react — When facing a difficult situation, pause, take a breath, reflect, and respond instead of simply reacting (e.g., got a stressful email? Take a beat and think on it before replying).
- Connect with nature — Choose outdoor activities that make you feel calm and at ease. Spend time gardening, visit a local park, or try forest bathing.
5) How to Be Delight-Full
- Bring mindfulness into the kitchen — Gather around, explore new recipes, and savour delicious meals with awareness and intention.
- Try ASMR — ASMR or autonomous sensory meridian response is a self-soothing and grounding activity that may calm your nervous system, allowing you to anchor in moments of hyper or hypo-arousal. Use this technique to delight your senses with various sound, sight, or touch stimuli (e.g., whispering, lights, tapping).
6) How to Be Art-Full
- Let your inner child play — Think of the activities you enjoyed as a child and give them a go! (e.g., building a fort, finger painting, dancing, pottery). Stop worrying about being “good” at them and start reclaiming your creativity and imagination.
- Be present with music — Music can be a fantastic background to work, cook, etc., but what happens when you pay close attention to the sounds, melodies, and lyrics? What comes alive in you? Play your favourite album or song, sit with it, and let the magic unfold.
7) How to Be Grace-Full
- Go easy on yourself — Prioritize tasks on a planner or task management app, break them down into smaller, achievable sub-tasks, and tackle them bit by bit. Remember: You don’t have to do it all at once. Rest is power.
- Repeat a graceful mantra — Give yourself some grace with a mantra. Repeat it as you wake up, go to bed, during meditation or any other moment when you need to ground and be kind to yourself. Some examples include:
- “I am worthy.”
- “I am doing the best I can.”
- “I am growing.”
- “I accept and adapt to what comes my way.”
- “I deserve genuine love and compassion.”
8) How to Be Tact-Full
- Listen mindfully — Use the HEAR technique:
- Halt what you are doing and pay attention.
- Enjoy a deep breath as you receive information.
- Ask yourself if you understand what’s being communicated (and if not, ask for clarification instead of making assumptions).
- Reflect or repeat what you heard back to them.
- Develop empathy — Talk to people from different backgrounds, share your own emotional experiences, and take action to help others. Joining a community initiative, volunteering, or doing random acts of kindness are some ways you can step outside of your bubble and spark positive change.
9) How to Be Respect-Full
- Communicate effectively — Can’t make it on time? Let people know. Don’t want to do something? Say no. Feel like someone crossed the line? Be direct about your limits. Having honest communication and setting clear boundaries allows you to respect yourself and others and keeps everyone accountable.
- Apologize (if you made a mistake) — Don’t apologize for who you are, what you have achieved, or what you stand for. But if you recognize you’ve done something wrong, don’t let ego or pride take over. Apologize to those involved and learn from the experience.
10) How to Be Beauty-Full
- Take note of the beauty in your life — Look around you and acknowledge the people, places, things, and circumstances that bring true beauty to your journey. Write them down, take pictures, reflect on them, and recall them on the good and bad days. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” meaning beauty is subjective and up to the observer.
- Write a letter to yourself or someone in your life — Write a letter to yourself like you would your best friend or partner. Jot down beautiful traits or skills about yourself and keep this letter close to you. You can also do this as a team-building exercise, passing around a sheet of paper with the members’ names and writing a quality or natural gift each person brings to the team. Then you can share the list with them to remind them of their beauty.
11) How to Be Grate-Full
- Write three good things — Every morning after waking up or every night before bed, write down three things you are grateful for (e.g., a good night’s sleep, a productive work day, or a meaningful conversation)
- Support your gratitude practice — Use gratitude cards, apps, journals, meditations and other resources to strengthen your practice and help you stay consistent.
12) How to Be Faith-Full
- Explore and reconnect with your faith — Evaluate your beliefs and find a spiritual practice that suits you. Whether meditating, praying, going to church, or volunteering, follow your heart and spirit to experience your faith to the fullest.
- Feed your curiosity — Read books or talk to others about their spiritual path. Aim to learn, expand your perspective, and answer your questions.
Start Fulfilling Your Life!
These 12 qualities are the starting point to reflect on your journey and take action toward a mindful and value-based life.
You can focus on one quality per month and reorder them as you’d like—whatever works for you!
Got questions or need support integrating these mindfulness qualities?
Contact Senses Mindfulness Coaching to book a complimentary consultation.