Setting Intentions as a Family for the New Year

The new year is almost upon us and while most people use this as a time to make resolutions, we’ve reframed that practice into setting intentions as a family. Why intentions rather than resolutions? It might seem like there’s little difference between the two concepts, but sometimes a subtle shift can create big changes. We’ve found that resolutions have more of a pass/fail notion attached to them and can feel a bit overbearing in the way that they call attention to the things that we’re lacking. Intentions, on the other hand, feel more forgiving in that we are more focused on the effort of working towards something. Striving for progress and not perfection.

Setting intentions can be a great activity to do as a family because it gets everyone on the same page and you can all support each other toward your mutually-defined goals. Besides, kids are great accountability partners, because you know they’ll beg remind you to do that fun activity that you’ve said you’ll do. Teaching kids about intentions is also a way to build up their growth mindset—setting a goal and continuously working on it. They’ll learn that the important part is to make the effort to keep going and even if one day doesn’t go as planned, tomorrow is a brand new day.

We’ve created a worksheet that encourages families to think about the month ahead with intention. Pick a day at the end of each month to reflect on what you’re grateful for, and discuss goals and activities you want to try in the following month. We’ve found that setting short-term goals each month (rather than each year) is more effective for kids’ limited attention spans and it’s motivating because they can frequently see the results. 

We can’t be the only ones who feel that the saying “the days are long, but the years are short” is especially true in parenthood. It can be easy to get caught up in the hustle of the everyday and before you know it, time has slipped away. Just the act of writing down some activities and ideas can go a long way towards helping you build the family life that you want. If you’d like to try setting intentions as a family, download the FREE printable Monthly Intentions worksheet that we’ve created.

Cheers to a new year of creating intentional and treasured family memories!