Mapping Your Journey — Blog — Courage to Caregivers

JANUARY 2024 NEWSLETTER: Manifesting a Practice of Setting Intentions

January is often a time of reflection, and a new year offers new beginnings. Throughout January we have been focused on our theme of SETTING INTENTIONS. An intention is a personal commitment from YOU to YOU - how do you want to BE/become? Setting intentions requires a great deal of self-awareness. We started with mapping your journey, then explored expectations and open-mindedness, and rounded out with moving from survival to thrival.

Here are 5 tools for setting intentions in 2024:

Start with mindfulness and come as you ARE. With a focus on inner peace, notice and connect with the most authentic version of yourself - with intention.
Next, what's most important to you - what are your core values? And leverage your strengths!
Then, remember, YOU are the designer of your own life. Who do you want to BE/become? What do you want more of?
Cultivate the power of intentional thinking - your mindset matters - how will you show up in 2024 for YOU?
Practice self-compassion as you plan for obstacles - be gentle with yourself - I have confidence you're doing the best you can in this moment with what you have. Focus on progress, not perfection.

Check out our entire January newsletter focused on SETTING INTENTIONS here!

Creating a Personal Guide Map

“One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else’s survival guide.” – Brené Brown

The beginning of a new year is a great time to celebrate for a couple of reasons. First, we can look back at the prior year and reflect on all the things we achieved and how much progress we made along our journey. Even though we may have faced challenges along the way, my guess is that there are many things – big or small – that you can point to that helped you grow throughout the year.

Setting IntentionsKristi HornerJanuary 3, 2024Mapping Your Journey

January Newsletter: Setting Intentions - Make it a practice in 2023!

Throughout January we have been focused on the theme of SETTING INTENTIONS. An intention is a personal commitment to YOU - how do you want to BE/what do you want to BECOME?

Setting intentions requires a great deal of self-awareness. We explored mapping your journey as a caregiver - managing expectations (of ourselves and others) - and open-mindedness.

"Self-awareness is important when setting intentions. It’s the ability to possess the knowledge, understanding, and recognition of who you are. Knowing yourself means being mindful of your disposition, character, motives, strengths, weaknesses, passions, and desires. Self-awareness allows us to identify what makes us unique in terms of our thoughts and actions. Having all this information can be empowering; you are more likely to be introspective and ready to decide on your intentions when you know yourself, which is an important element of healing and transformation." ~ Diana Raab

What if setting intentions feels HARD? Maybe you're worried about not living into your intention? Or perhaps you're concerned about facing your fears or are feeling discouraged or even disappointed?

We all get off track sometimes. Practice self-compassion - be gentle with yourself. You've done hard things before - you can do it again! Take a pause - consider where you went off course - and commit to trying again tomorrow. Recommit in a kinder and gentler way.

Today, I will be more present.

This month, I will practice patience.

This year, I will celebrate my progress.

Remember - it's not about perfection - it's about PROGRESS.

I am a perfectly imperfect perpetual work in progress.

Check out our entire January Newsletter focused on Setting Intentions here.

The Next Stage of Your Journey

At the start of a new year, we all tend to both reflect on the prior year and look forward to the coming year. My guess is you’ve grown in many wonderful ways since the beginning of 2022, and that’s worthy of celebrating! But perhaps you also feel stagnant or stuck in some ways, and those would be good things to work on in 2023. And we hope this month’s theme of setting intentions and this week’s topic of mapping your journey will help you continue your process of self-growth and dreaming BIG.