Making resolutions, setting intentions, or just striving for improvements in your life? Here are some tips for success.By Arturo Mora

“I’m going to the gym six times a week to lose 20 pounds by May.”

“I’m going to save $500 a week and buy that dream home by September.”

Sound familiar? Many people come into the new year armed with such resolutions, determined to succeed. But May comes around and

our pants are still tight, and September finds us in the same old apartment.

Actually, most people abandon their resolutions within a few weeks. Only about 8 percent achieve the desired results. What’s more, setting resolutions, done carelessly, can even cause harm. It can affect self-confidence and reinforce the impression that goals are not worth setting, or that we are not capable of achieving them.

GOALS

SPECIFIC

MEASURABLE

ATTAINABLE

RELEVANTTIME-RELATED

Be a Goal Getter

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Pick the Right Goals You’ve got the right big picture approach, and you’re ready to pick specific goals. But remember that an ill-conceived goal can set you up for failure. The traditional advice is to set goals that are S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Related). What else contributes to a good or bad resolution? Beware of superficial goals not connected to who you want to be. “(Failure) most often occurs when people pick goals without a really deep motivation behind it,” says Wigglesworth. “If I (say) I’m going to lose 10 pounds, it’s important to ask, Why am I doing this? If I do it because my friends are doing it, that’s not a very strong motivator. But if I’m doing it because I’ll feel better, that is a better motivator.” Goals for selfish gain are usually not connected to your true essence and invite disappointment. Janet Conner, author of Writing Down Your Soul, instead recommends putting energy toward creating and living the conditions for a fuller life. In her new book, The Lotus and the Lily, she offers an alternative to traditional goal-setting:

But done right, goal-setting can be a valuable path to success in all areas of life. How can you do New Year’s resolutions right, with the best chance for positive results and the least chance of harm?

Look at the Big Picture First First, would you begin a road trip by taking any highway, without first knowing your final destination? According to the coaches interviewed for this article, the key to any kind of goal-setting is to first know where you want to get to. That doesn’t mean simply asserting, “I want to lose 20 pounds.” It means knowing who you want to be and what kind of life you want; looking at your life intentions before you even set goals or resolutions. “A life intention is, ‘I am willing to be …,’ whatever your intention is for that year,” says Carla McClellan, director of Unity Life Coaching Center at Unity Village. “An intention gives you clarity when things get unclear. An intention gives you an aim or direction for your energy.” A life intention might be, “I am a healthy, energetic person, contributing fully to help others.” The resulting goal might then be, “I want to lose 20 pounds.” Cindy Wigglesworth, executive coach and author of

SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence, lets her personal values be her guide.

“My values are God and family and work, in that order, and to take care of my health to support those,” she says. “This year I bought a giant poster-sized 2013 calendar. I plotted time with my husband, kids, best friends to fulfill the first two

values. I have a lot of work coming up in 2013, and I didn’t want my third value to limit time for the first

and second. Planning our time is one very practical way to live true to our deepest commitments.” (See a

review of Wigglesworth’s book in our “Spiritual Reading and Metaphysical Media” section, page 38.)

“My values are God and family and work, in that order, and to take care of my health to support those. This year I bought a giant poster-sized 2013 calendar. I plotted time with my husband, kids, best friends to fulfill the first two values. I have a lot of work coming up in 2013, and I didn’t want my third value to limit time for the first and second.”

–Cindy Wigglesworth

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Note:To comment on this article, send an email to the editor at lapptm@unityonline.org.

to what is most interesting to us, such as our goal, the chatter dies down. We don’t hear it so loudly,” McClellan said. Another risk is that without constant care, resolutions will fizzle and fade. “Frequently reflect on them,” says Wigglesworth. “At the beginning of each week, look at your calendar and priorities. Do a reality check, not in the sense of beating yourself up, but just continually saying, Am I really serious about this goal? If so, where is it in my allocation of time and resources?” Is it helpful to ask for support, or does that do more harm than good? Friends and family can sometimes inadvertently fuel self-doubts. “All of us need support,” says

McClellan, “but choose your support team well. Discern who will always see the highest and best for you.” When any hurdles arise, Conner said, trust in ultimate outcomes. “When things happen that make you think, ‘I don’t like that,’ or ’That doesn’t feel good,’ instead of being upset, look at it and say, ‘That’s interesting. I wonder what the universe has in mind? What is the beauty in this?’ I have learned to leave it alone, step away and say to God in my prayers, ‘I know you’ll take care of me. I know you’re leading me somewhere beautiful,’ and then the answer comes; it always comes,” Conner says.

Just Be It “Just Do It” is not enough motivation for everyone, so try to “Just Be It”—be your true self. It all begins with first knowing your life intentions. Then pick goals based on who you really want to be. Be ready with strategies to affirm and live your resolutions weekly, and to meet setbacks head on. With these tools, you can wind your way past all the stops and starts, bumps and potholes, and know that the road ahead is the road you’re meant to be on. n

creating an Intention Mandala. (Note: see sidebar for more information.) “Your focus is not on those things you want,” she says. “You literally say to God, ‘Here, you’re in charge of all that, you know what I need that I don’t even know I need. Here’s my half of the equation; I will live my conditions.’“It’s like shifting your focus. Where are your eyes? Are your eyes on begging for what you want, reminding God I need that new job, I need, I need? Stop asking and start living. Let’s set aside all this modern popular literature that is materialism camouflaged as spirituality. It’s not that these things don’t work, but they’re not satisfying, they’re not enough.”

It’s a 365-Day Resolution Once you have solid, motivating, unselfish goals, what could possibly go wrong? What are the most common roadblocks to success? Wigglesworth says a key pitfall is an unrealistic plan on how to reach your goal. For that 10-pound weight loss goal, she said, “Pick reasonable ‘hows.’ Not ‘I’m going to fast for four days, and then go on a green diet that’s not sustainable.’ Be fair and kind to the self about the specifics of the implementation.” Perhaps the biggest saboteur is self-doubt. Solid goals will help prevent that from occurring. “Everyone has that self-limiting chatter all the time. If we shift our attention

ResolutionsI resolve to get rid of my credit card debt.

I resolve to spend more time with my family.

I resolve to lose weight in 2013.

IntentionsI am willing to be financially secure.

I am willing to be a loving family member.

I am willing to be physically fit and healthy in 2013.

Resolutions vs. Intentions

A resolution is defined as a firm decision to do something, says Carla McClellan. Intention is defined as an underlying aim, direction or purpose that comes from deep within. An intention gives clear, pure focus to how we use our energy.

This New Year’s Day, don’t set a resolution to lose 10 pounds, cut out sugar, or any other good thing. Instead, ask, “What con-

ditions will nourish a whole, beautiful, abundant life?” Try asking this question in deep soul writ-ing. The answers may surprise you.

Once you know your conditions, make an Inten-tion Mandala. Trace a dinner plate on a piece of paper and at the center draw a symbol that’s meaningful to you. For me that’s a lily, but for you perhaps it’s a spiritual symbol or a spiral or a totem animal. On this central image, write key words that remind you how you want to live. For example, this past New Year’s Day, I drew a lily and wrote Intention, Prayer, Sacred Space, Holy Work, Focus, and Grateful Heart on the six pet-als. Then, along the curved edge of the mandala, where the numbers on a clock would be, draw or paste pictures of what you want to experience in 2013. Post your Intention Mandala where it will feed you subliminally. Mine is on the wall beside my computer, where my peripheral vision sees it all day long.

Every morning, stand in front of your mandala, and look at the things you want and your condi-tions. Then, out loud, hand your needs over to Spirit and commit to focus on your half of the equation—living your conditions. Speak each condition aloud with fervor and joy. I sing mine in a sweet little chant. This simple spiritual practice will quickly become the highlight of your day.

And things will begin to happen almost immedi-ately. Why? Because an Intention Mandala has all the generative powers a resolution does not. It is an expression of unity. Every culture has used this unbreakable sacred shape to represent the union of the human and the divine. The Native American medicine wheel, dome of a mosque, labyrinth at Chartres, Celtic cross, and yin-yang symbol are all mandalas. But a mandala is not a static picture. It’s alive. “The Mandala may be regarded as an engine of change,” said Jose and Miriam Arguelles in their definitive book, Mandala (Shambhala, 1972).

The brilliant systems theorist Ervin Laszlo ex-plains: “All matter is conscious … there is no cate-gorical divide between matter and mind” (Science and the Akashic Field, Inner Traditions, 2004). He theorizes that everything sends energy and infor-mation back and forth to everything else through a frictionless medium called the quantum vacuum, or Akashic field. This means the intentions on your mandala go out as sparks of information into an information-dense universe where, like little tun-ing forks, they resonate with and attract all other things holding similar information. Because this happens in a superfluid quantum universe, it can happen very, very fast.

And that’s exactly what I experienced. When I made my first Intention Mandala on January 1, 2010, I was bankrupt. Thirty-one days later, I was not. No resolution could work that fast. But here’s the key, and it is a paradox. My life changed because I stopped focusing on what I wanted and just faithfully lived my conditions. In the past two years, I’ve taught hundreds this process, and invariably, they have the same surprising experi-ence: The more you take your eyes off what you want, and focus instead on living your conditions, the more you receive.

The Buddha was onto something. When condi-tions are sufficient, there is a manifestation. And it’s far more delightful than you or any resolution could predict. n

Don’t Make a Resolution—Make an Intention MandalaBy Janet Conner