Mr. Toastmaster, fellow toast masters, and distinguished guests. Tonight, I am going to walk you through my practice of year end intention setting. During the last week of each year, I answer a series of questions that help me to both put the prior year to rest and set my intentions for the year to come to come.
To ensure that you get the most from my presentation, I would like each one of you to open a word document or have a pen and paper close by. As I walk you through my routine, I will give you a few seconds to answer the questions for yourself. My objective is that by the end of this speech each of you will have some useful tools to not only close out 2020 but also to help guide your actions in 2021.
2020 Gratitude
The first question I ask myself is, what am I grateful for? Each one of us had a different experience last year. It could be that 2020 was exceedingly hard, but it forced you to make a decision you had been putting off. Or maybe the year did not impact you like it did others, but the break gave you time reflect on life. In either case there is something to be grateful for.
With this in mind, I want each of you to write down what I call “your golf shot of the year.” The name comes from the fact that whenever anyone goes golfing, they always have that one shot they love to talk about. All the other shots could have gone into the woods but that one good shot made the trip worth it. I will put 30 seconds on the clock, and I would like each of you to write down your golf shot of the year.
- What’s your golf shot of the year?
Whatever your golf shot was, that single event made your life better and helped to make 2020 a year worth having. I would encourage each of you to reflect on your golf shot and even write down the feelings you had when it occurred. Doing this exercise puts us in the right mind set to think about our intentions for 2021.
Intention Setting for 2021
Many people find setting their intentions to be challenging. In part this is because most people confuse intentions with goals. Goals are specific, measurable, and achievement based. Intentions are linked to the feelings and life adjustments we get from achieving our goals.
To identify our intentions, we must start by talking about what we “want” or “should” do. A good example of these kinds of statements are… I want to be less stressed or I should read more. We speak in this manner because these statements describe our emotions. We feel the pull of what we want, and we know the discomfort that occurs when we identify something we should do. Because these two statements are the way we connect with our desires, this is where we will begin to identify our intentions 2021 intentions.
Let’s take another few second and write down everything that comes to mind about what you want or should do in 2021.
I want to…..
I should…..
Intention Setting
Articulating what we want and should do is easy, but most people stop there. One of the big reasons we don’t even start to work towards our desires or accomplish them over the long term is because we often don’t address “why” we want them. The “whys” behind your desires are our intentions.
If I were to say I want to run more, running more is not my intention. My intention might be to improve my physique or increase my performance. Running is just the mechanism I use to work toward my intentions.
Now that we have a list of the “wants” and “should” let’s identify the intention behind them. We will take another few seconds and write down the why behind the goals. To do this…
Take your wants and your should’s and add the word because to the end of them…..
Identifying your intentions is the most important clarification you can make for yourself. Sometimes we think we want or should do something only to find out those desired will not actually help us to accomplish our intentions. We can only make this discovery if we take the time to articulate our intentions.
Conclusion
Each year, I would highly recommend the practice of expressing gratitude and setting your intentions. You can do this by first asking yourself what your golf shot to the year was. Once you have done this, you can focus on the future by determining what you want or should do. Finally, you should ask yourself why? So that you can come to terms with the intentions behind those desires.
Knowing our intentions is going to keep us grounded, helping us only pursue activities that support them. Going into 2021 think about why you are doing something and make sure that it aligns with your intentions. If it doesn’t, consider making an adjustment. Each one of us can accomplish anything as long as the actions we are taking are pushing us towards the outcomes we want. I hope tonight has given you something to think about and I hope that your best experiences in 2020 are your worst in 2021.