Nourish Your Wild Side: A Goal-Setting Practice

What are you manifesting for the new year?

As each year comes to a close, I take time to sit down and make space to reflect on the past year: my growth, my experiences, and how I want to shape my life in the coming 356 days. I think this is one of the most powerful things I do each year in order to ensure I’m living a life I love.

I’m not the only one who sees this as a vital exercise for personal growth: companies like lululemon hold goal coaching sessions for their employees, and individuals like Danielle LaPorte have created entire goal setting systems and communities. Every wellness website has published at least one article on goal setting this month – even websites that aren’t focused on wellness are jumping in.

It can be difficult to sort through the clutter, so I’ve compiled a few ideas, books, and links to help. A lot of this work comes from within, but I like to have prompts to guide me through my end-of-year reflection and new year goal setting. While it may be more obvious to set career and financial goals, there are some areas that require more insight – more digging into your true self, your dreams, your desires – in order to get really clear on what you want. Some of these areas include your relationship with yourself and others, the ways you contribute to your community and to your space, how the thoughts you think shape your everyday life, and the ways you spend your time. That’s where reflection comes in.

To get you started, check out the visual below to help you choose some areas in your life to focus on in the next year:

Goal setting, intention setting, manifesting… all of this is very personal. It can be difficult for some to hold space and tune in. Here are some things that help me:

I put on relaxing music that helps me focus. Here’s my favorite playlist.
I have one notebook dedicated to goals and intentions, which I always use for my yearly goal setting. I find that keeping everything in one place helps prime my mind to focus on manifesting anytime this notebook is out.
I use essential oils to align my senses. Since I like to feel relaxed during this process, I love to use lavender oil. Some other great options are peppermint to energize you, DoTerra Citrus Bliss or another orange oil to put you in a happy mood, or DoTerra Balance or Serenity to help you really tune in.
I surround myself with my favorite crystals. The one I most connect with is rose quartz, so I keep my three pieces nearby.
My sister and I love palo santo. Its smoke is cleansing, recharging, and centering. I light my piece and place it in a dish. It’s also great to use to clear stagnant space (physical, mental, emotional, etc.). We don’t need any stagnancy around our goals!

All of my goal setting, reflection, and journaling happens on paper. I know we live in a technology-focused world and that it would be very easy to put these in a word document or Evernote, which I love, but there’s something so special about picking up a pen and putting your dreams on paper in ink. No backspace. No command-z to undo writing down that one big scary goal. Just you, your journal, and your pen.

I also like to bring my goals to life with a vision board. Rather than printing things out or cutting up magazines, I love to create my vision boards on Pinterest. The best part about this is the ability to access my vision board from wherever I am at the moment. I see my vision board as a tool to keep me inspired and excited for the year ahead, so it’s helpful to have it at my fingertips if I ever need a boost. Building your vision board on Pinterest also means it’s dynamic: as you re-assess your goals throughout the year, you can add to your vision board as well.