I Resolve: Mindfulness for Your 2022 Resolutions

Source: Zach Dulli/Pixabay, altered by GCS

Happy New Year! (Or, even just Less-Catastrophic New Year?) Following the egregiously lousy year 2020 came fervent hopes for 2021. That's worked out...you know.

We have come to expect stories of New Year's resolution(s) needing to be set—goals and timelines for better weight management, exercise, and time for this or that fruitful enterprise. (Publishers call this marketing period "New Year, New You." Perhaps the traditional setting of New Year's resolutions in such a time of social, political, and viral uncertainty could seem silly, other than maybe to smile more and curse less.

Mindfulness Practices

But, even in this moment, we can set our minds to act locally, to an aspiration requiring inspiration and sometimes perspiration. An intention to redouble our daily efforts can obviously be started up any old time, but a fresh year is a preferable time. Mindfulness practices can really help—beyond the (circular) suggestion of resolving to start or better stick with a regular meditation practice.

We may be more than sheepish about joining the other sheep in a rote but mindless New Year's resolution making. Resolutions set without much sincere intention and mindful monitoring are not really worth setting. The failure, or perhaps self-sabotage, is not a good look in terms of the individual outcomes—weight unchanged, a backseat still a mess, a budget still in disorder. It even can reinforce a subsequent sense of an incompetent self looking back in the mirror.

Ideas to Consider

But we need not put our resolution plans out to pasture. Besides the usual tactical guidance about resolutions—to set concrete and achievable goals, plan out steps to success, buddy up with others for support—here are a couple of additional ideas to consider:

• One is preparatory: Become clear on your commitment level—why you are setting the resolution. This is where using some time on the cushion with "my [thing I want to change/do better at/not do so much of going forward]" as an idea to sit with can be fruitful. In my meditation guide, this "theme ingredient" practice is covered in more detail, but here's the short take. It's not time for an analysis; that's a helpful but different kind of use of our minds. Instead, we can start out with basic breath meditation, then introduce "I want to lose some weight," or "I want to be kinder to my family," or whatever, as a conscious idea in awareness, then observe how it operates, what happens to us. Does energy go up? Do thoughts about failure start blizzarding upstairs? Is there an ache of sadness in the heart? Actively moving the focus of observation to a more complex phenomenon is not an introductory kind of practice, but once we get a handle on the basics of watch/lose/regain/back at it, we can go there. The benefits? We can get a sense for what may block our intentions. We may find out a resolution is forced by habit rather than truly committed to.
• The other idea is a regular maintenance check, as part of the daily sitting: We can follow a resolution in mind via sitting practice as we pursue it off the cushion in action. A regular plan to briefly attend in practice keeps the resolution from dropping off the radar. We can check in with how progress or struggle impacts us as we roll along, and tend to hope, frustration, and other states that arise in the striving.

We can attend to the goals as more fully aware humans and less as sheep without a shepherd.