This is the point when it all starts to slide.  It’s that wicked time of year when good intentions hit real life. Your New Year’s resolve to – lose weight, spend less, be more organized, eat healthier, be more patient, fill in your aspiration here – has started to fade.  It seems so doable, and even fun, when you announced it (to yourself) in that post holiday sloth. Weeks of excess eating, drinking and spending made you long for a more virtuous life. You’ll learn new recipes. You’ll feel better when you start exercising. Imagining those clean closets feels positively freeing. So you sign up for the diet plan, buy the organizing system, order a relationship book, join the health club, insert resolution-assisting purchase here. Now you feel even better.  This is nothing like all that other stuff you’ve wasted money on.  No, this is an investment, an investment in a better you. Then comes mid-January, when real life buries your good intentions until they become unrecognizable bumps in your yard. But, there’s a way to win. The secret is to shift your gestalt to reframe the form and shape of your goals. Instead of making resolutions, try setting intentions instead. Instead of saying I’m going to lose weight, set an intention to eat healthier. For me, intentions are more flexible, they give you room to maneuver and regroup.  Intentions are powerful because they feel more personal. When you’re trying to lose weight, you’re focusing on the outcome, the outcome is defined by absence, the thing you want to go away. But an intention to eat healthy is more honoring and affirming.  It’s more about how you want to be, than a rule you have http://www.mcleodandmore.com/2014/01/31/why-intentions-are-more-fun-than-resolutions/