Agile Best Self: New Year’s Intention Workshop. Free. Online.

If you saw the title and thought: “Hell Yes, I’m in!” scroll to the bottom for registration details and logistics.

Since Brian wrote this post on A Different Kind of New Year’s Resolution, we have been talking about resolutions, intention, outcomes and optimism. We have all heard of resolutions like: “Eat healthier”, “Spend time with loved ones” or “Get 10,000 steps a day” or “Work less.” My favorite failure-fraught resolution: “Lose 10 lbs.”

Instead of immediately setting ourselves up for a New Year’s checklist or a resolution that has no intrinsic motivation, or a resolution focusing on what you want to avoid (“Work less”), Brian summarizes a podcast from Dr. Michael Gervais and 2 time Olympian Nicole Davis:

Dr. Gervais and Nicole discussed the idea of focusing goals around intention, over outcomes. Why? Because intention is something we can fully control — how we show up everyday is a choice.

Brian Hackerson, https://agilebestself.com/2020/12/23/a-different-kind-of-2021-new-years-resolution/

Instead of a resolution, try setting a New Year’s Intention instead.

2021 is the year of _________.

True to form, I jumped in head first: for me, 2021 will be the year of optimism. I know I have to put some time into optimism and adjacent skills. Now it is official. True to form for him, Brian is still pondering his New Year’s Intention.

As with all of our Agile Best Self stories and workshops, we live through the learnings first, and then share our learnings with our like-hearted community. We already have some insights in writing a New Year’s Intention. First, focusing on outcomes is difficult. It is hard to get motivating, activating outcomes that can span an entire year. It can be hard to write a truly aspirational outcome. Our brains are so wired to “do the thing” that we frequently write task lists instead of focusing on the impact we are trying to achieve (aka the outcome).

Second, it seems as if filling in a blank would be simple. Well, remember that simple does not equate with easy. Selecting the word to put in the blank is quite challenging. And unlike taking a multiple choice test, the first answer is usually akin to the first thought or a first draft. Unless you have already put a significant amount of introspection into your life and who you want to be, the answer rarely magically appears. My answer popped in my head because I have been blogging about it for a month.

Third, it is hard to keep the momentum going. A year??? An entire freaking year??? Your inner critic may be piping up right now to say: “Why bother. Look what happened to your New Year’s Resolution last year.” I think those that fell short to on their 2020 resolution should get a pass. But even in a normal year, resolutions are hard to keep up. Just compare a packed gym parking lot in January to a half-full gym parking lot in March. In the workshop, Brian and I offer up some ideas.

And lastly, Brian and I have to bring in our cornerstone principle:

Agile Best Self Principle #1: Our highest priority is to be our best self and enable others to be their best selves.

When it comes to New Year’s Intentions, how do we share our learnings so that we can enable others to be their best selves? Simple. A workshop and a community interested in the success of everyone.

Let’s set aside 90 minutes to invest in each other and create some compelling, crisp New Year’s Intentions!

• Cost/Format: Free Online Zoom Workshop
• Date: Mon, January 25, 2021
• Time: 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM CST Eventbrite calendaring will create a local calendar hold for you once you register, so you don’t have to calculate the time zones in your head.
• Materials Needed: Paper for drawing (8 1/2 x 11 or sketchbook), pens or pencils
• Registration Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/x/agile-best-self-intention-workshop-tickets-134453769845

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