Uncertainty About Your Goals Is the Best Way to Start the Year

With the turn of the calendar to January 1, the pressure ratchets up to declare, definitively, what this year will be about for you.

Where will you focus?
What are your themes?
What are your goals?
What are your intentions?

Maybe you just don’t know.

Or maybe you do know, but you’re resistant to it because it doesn’t seem “rational” or “make sense” or fit the narrative of your life that you’ve so carefully constructed.

Perhaps it’s right there, but you’re just in a fog and can’t articulate it. Yet.

Maybe you’re just sorting through it, finding clarity.

Wherever you are, it’s ok.

January 1 is not the starting blocks of a race. There’s no contest to see who can declare their intentions first. You don’t get a bonus for defining all of your goals by today.

If you have that clarity, great.

If not, even better.

In fact, uncertainty about your goals is the best way to start a year.

Here’s why:

It gives you a blank slate to imagine possibilities that you might not otherwise consider.

When you believe you’re clear on what you want, it’s easy to fixate on those goals to the exclusion of other possibilities. This can cause you to miss openings and opportunities that present themselves to you.

The space of not knowing is the fertile soil in which the best seeds are planted.

Permission to Not Know

What if, instead of falling victim to the pressure to declare your intention for the year and bound out of the starting gate, you gave yourself permission to be in the mystery for a week?

Could you give yourself a full week of not knowing?

What might open up for you if you allowed yourself a full week of getting curious, of listening to the messages of your heart, of imagining a future different from one you may have imagined in the past?

What might come alive in you if you gave yourself the freedom to dream a crazy dream or imagine a scenario that seems so “out there,” without worrying about whether or how it might be possible?

The Basis of Success is Not How Quickly You Define Your Goals

If that seems frivolous or irresponsible, consider this a sign that this is exactly what you need.

Your success in the coming year is not predicated on how quickly you define your intentions or goals. It’s predicated on creating a path that’s aligned with your values, your needs, and what you truly desire.

Your success in the coming year is predicated on creating a path that is aligned with your values, needs, and what you truly desire — not on how quickly you can define your goals.

The year is not a race.

Where the Best Seeds Are Planted

If you are in a space of not knowing what you want from this year, you are in the right place. That is the emptiness from which the seeds of new projects take root.

Let your curiosity guide you as you consider possibilities beyond the realm of your current experience. Dare to imagine a new paradigm for yourself. Maybe clarity is closer than you think.