We developed this exercise to help you set your goals and intentions for 2021.
We hope you can find 15-20 minutes over the next couple days to set aside some "you" time. Light some candles, make a cup of tea, grab your journal and give yourself space to invest in yourself.
There are two main objectives we are trying to accomplish through the prompts below.
Our first objective is uncovering your underlying “why”.
Why did you join this group? Why is sustainability important to you? Why is healthy living important to you?
When the journey gets tough and inconvenient, you can revisit your personal “why” and it can be a strong foundation for your journey.
Our second objective with this is for you to write down your goals for this journey. These goals can be as small or as ambitious as you want. We found that habit stacking and integrating goals into other aspects of your life is a great way to make sure the goals become a part of your daily lifestyle.
Why intentions versus resolutions?
Instead of focusing on something that needs to be resolved, we want to target our energy toward goals and intentions for the upcoming year. Through intentions we can align with our true values and go intentionally and consciously into 2021.
Journal Prompts
Think about a few different aspects of your life that changed in 2020. We all can have Covid-19 as a shared experience, but we all also had some personal shifts that caused a change in how we live our lives. Pick two or three events and go through the bullets below for each.
- How did the event shift how you live your life?
- What worked for you about those changes?
- What didn’t work for you with those changes?
- Going into 2021, how can you keep the things that worked and change the unfavorable things?
With the below questions, dig deeper to unveil the foundational why of your healthy living goals:
- What is the driving reason you want to incorporate sustainability & healthy habits into your life?
- In what areas does it seem most manageable to incorporate these habits?
- In what areas does it seem really hard or not feasible?
Write down 3 sustainably-minded or healthy-living goals for 2021:
Here's a list of examples to get started, but this is in no way exhaustive! Get creative and find things that fit in well with your lifestyle.
- Start an herb garden and cook new recipes with what I grow
- Try a new vegan or gluten-free recipe every week
- Partake in meatless Mondays
- Build & use an at-home compost
- Prioritize purchasing organic, non-processed foods
- Lower single-use waste in my grocery shopping and cooking routine
- Learn more about what you can/can't recycle to ensure I'm recycling correctly
- Carry a set of reusable utensils so I can say no to plastic utensils
- Keep paper towels under the sink for specific uses and use cloth dish towels a majority of the time
- Try some DIY beauty products
- Shop second hand and avoid fast fashion trends
- Listen to 1-2 podcasts a week around a topic I want to learn more about (e.g., low waste lifestyle, health, social or environmental movements)
- Bike places that are less than 3 miles away
- Find at least 10 minutes everyday to connect with nature
- Set aside time to journal and reflect on your progress once a week
We can’t wait to hear some of your goals and intentions in the New Year!