A New Year’s Intention Is Better Than A Resolution

Happy New Year! Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions. The largest percentage of those resolutions have to do with financial and physical health. According to Ohio State University, 23% of people drop their resolution by the end of the first week! And a total of 43% quit by the end of January.

That’s why I pick an intention for the year and post about it almost daily on my personal Facebook page throughout the year. My posts aren’t always super focused on my intention, but just typing the theme of the intention daily triggers my mind to think about my direction.

Why The Intention Was Born

For 2025, I picked the theme “Resilient Circles.” In 2024, my theme or intention was Blue Zones Power 9. I worked to build my social circles. In the process of doing that, I was reminded that not all people support our goals in life. I drew close to a friend from my nurse-midwifery days who seemed to have something negative to say about many of my life aspirations.

She helped me to see that I need to focus on building a network of others who believe in the science of positive psychology and resilience. That is, for me to stay shifted, I need support from others who are also shifted. Otherwise, it is super easy to backslide. That’s when the intention was born.

Different Concepts Of Resilient Circles

Small Groups Of People Focused On Resilience

I have been preparing for the year by reading up on what “resilient circles” mean to the world. Doing a simple Google search led me to several groups, called resilient circles, which are small support groups of 10-20 people that are focused on helping one another to stay resilient. I like that. It goes along with my initial idea of having a few good friends who are also focused on resilience, and also joining some groups with people who are resilient by nature.

Pillars Of Resilience

There are two other concepts that come to mind when I think of “resilient circles.” The first is a type of life balance related to resilience. That is, each circle represents an element of resilience. I like the one from the VA, above. This reminds me a bit of Blue Zones Power 9 with the focus on community. I will share the Blue Zones Power 9 below (credit to Osteo Mag for the image) for comparison. There is more of a focus on physical health with the VA resilience model. Mindfulness, purpose, and community are prominent in both models and will remain a focus for me this year.

Cycles Of Resilient Behavior

The third type of resilient circles that come to mine are more like cycles. Each day, as we interact with our environment, we experience cycles. How can we change our perceptions about the events in our lives so that our reactions help us to sustain resilience? This is like a cognitive behavioral therapy piece. If I perceive that my dog eats my homework because she hates me then my reaction will be different than if I see it as a message that I need to put my homework in a safe place. How can we create cycles in our lives that improve resilience? (I like the diagram below from TransformPsychology to illustrate this type of resilient circles.)

New Year’s Eve 2024: The First Steps Of The Journey

Honestly, I feel a bit disorganized starting this journey. I don’t have a lot of exact plans, but I have a year. And, I find just writing about plans is like under-promising to myself. Here are my thoughts:

• Join groups that are focused on resilience for self or others. I just joined a nursing committee that is looking at improving health outcomes in maternal-child health.
• I would love to start an actual resilience circle that met monthly – then perhaps, facilitate some resilience circles locally or online.
• Become more involved with the International Positive Psychology Association to find like-minded friends and colleagues.
• Watch movies with resilience as a theme.
• Read books about resilience – both scientific and inspirational stories (fiction or non-fiction.)
• Blog about my progress at least once a month on ResilientStuff.

That’s all I can think of right now. When Harry Met Sally, chocolate cake, and wine are calling me. I wanted to get this down in writing before the New Year so I can go back next year and see the progress.

Conclusion And Comments

In this blog, I have talked about my 2025 intention of creating resilient circles. The term circles has different meanings related to resilience. The first is a circle of like-minded friends all focused on supporting one another’s resilience. The second is a diagram of the pillars of resilience, each occupying a circle on a diagram. The third is the concept of a circle representing a cycle. Through focus on the cycles that our brain uses to process our world, we can shift to more resilient life strategies.

My journey this year will be an attempt to immerse myself in resilient circles in all the ways that I have mentioned.

What are your New Year’s resolutions? And, how will you be building resilience in 2025? Please leave a comment or contact me at cathy@artfromthehartt.com.