2022 Requires a Different Approach; Tips for Easing into Vision This Year
A new year often leads to conversations on setting new goals and intentions, but as we continue to live with so much uncertainty, it is hard to muster an enthusiastic, rosy-colored approach to visioning on any front.
The typical blue-sky questions I might ask clients to envision their most triumphant outcomes tend to fall flat and feel a little tone deaf right now. I empathize with the discouragement, exhaustion, loss and trauma that so many of us have experienced these two and half years. We have come to lean hard on the muscles of flexibility and adaptability, and these muscles can run counter to the muscles of planning and visioning. Below are some ways you can tip your toes into the water and warm up to visioning this January.
I am finding friends, family and clients are able to talk about intentions at the micro scale. Here are a few intentions I heard from people this first week of 2022.
“I want to set a couple clear boundaries around my job and work/life in 2022, so I don’t get swallowed up this year.”
“I want to carve more space and time to reconnect and rekindle with my partner; even if we have been together working and caring for our kids at home, it’s not the same.”
“We have been hunkered down so long, I want to find ways for our family to do fun things again and help my kids to feel comfortable being social and out in the world again.”
“I plan to not work on Fridays this year so I can spend time on writing.”
“Living abroad, I want to improve my German by watching more television and engaging with the language more.”
And my own resolution: “I want to write more blogs and write more poems this year.” (I am making a bit of headway with this post!)
Setting intentions, such as these, which are within our span of control seems like pretty good medicine during these turbulent times. For those that want to take stock and brainstorm hopes and plans more holistically, I have been thinking a lot about Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model for Change. The model was theorized to explain how people gradually plan and alter an unhealthy behavior. I find it applicable to any type of individual behavioral change, however. This model allows us to ease into our possibilities and visions and acknowledge the gradual way in which tend to move toward and away from things in any area of our life. It fits with the fluid pace of life today.
Below are the reflection questions, building in part on Prochaska’s Theory of Change, that allow you to take stock and brainstorm your way to possibilities in 2022. I also offer a hypothetical range of answers based on things that may be aspirational and things I have heard clients and colleagues contemplating this past week.
Prochaskas Transtheoretical Stages for Change
Contemplation: What are small or big changes you are contemplating in 2022?
(E.g., Getting 8 hours of sleep, moving, signing up for a class, watching more television, reconnecting with broader network, retiring)Preparation and Action: What are professional and personal plans that you are preparing for or are already in motion on in 2022?
(E.g., Building out a new practice area for my company, taking a sabbatical year, running a side hustle business, taking on a home renovation project, downsizing belongings and space)Maintenance: What are positive habits, practices, commitments you are in maintenance mode around?
(E.g., Weekly visits to care for family, daily meditation, daily walks or runs, home cooked meals)Elimination: What might you drop or do less of this year?
(E.g., time wasting app or social media platform, responding to or reading vitriol)Healing:What do you need or want to acknowledge as a loss right now that requires healing and attention
(E.g., a loved one, isolation, Ground hog day cadence, mobility from an injury)
So often, we already are tackling a lot and need to acknowledge the body of work before taking on new goals and intentions. We also need to constantly prune activities and pursuits to free up time for the most critical investments. Indeed, Adele’s new song “Go Easy on Me” seems an appropriate motto to apply to ourselves and our fellow colleagues and connections at this start of 2022. I hope you will go easy on yourself at this start of yet another seemingly unpredictable year and also that you will take a longer time horizon on the change process as well.