Image Source: Vatican Museums, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Welcome to January. Many of us resolve to take some big action to change our lives in January. We may make resolutions. And often, we abandon those resolutions by the middle of the month.
As I reflected in a past January post, setting intentions is usually a more productive strategy than making resolutions. Setting an intention involves directing your attention to a particular course of action. One year, my intention was to get into better physical shape. Instead of making a resolution that I was going to work out four times a week, run a half marathon, or some other lofty metric, I simply decided that my intention was to move more. I wrote "MOVE" on a little yellow sticky note and put it on a paper organizer on my desk. Last year, my intention was to work on my book project, so my sticky note said "WRITE." I'm still thinking about my intention for 2026.
January is named for Roman god Janus. He was believed to be the god who watched over beginnings and endings. Janus looked after passages and openings, changes and transitions. He had a face that looked in two directions—forward and backward.
Janus is an apt figure for January, and he provides a good model for setting intentions for the new year. To set intentions, we not only need to think hard about what we want for our lives in the coming twelve months, but we also need to look back upon the year we just completed.
Sometimes we say "good riddance" to the year that just ended. (A lot of us are saying that about 2025.) But it's important to also think about the joys and satisfactions of the past year. Reflection on what we learned from the past year is a powerful tool for new year intention setting.
A number of folks I follow on Substack or in other venues posted some useful end-of-the year reflection questions to help assess what we learned from 2025. Courtney Martin, a Bay-area writer whose work I love, posted her annual list here. Among my favorites:
· What has been dormant this year that I'd like to awaken? How might I awaken or nurture this to grow?
· What has overgrown this year that I'd like to put back to seed and/ or what have I been carrying? Is there anything I can lay down to rest?
I also liked these three from the New York Times Well Newsletter:
· When did you feel the most joyful and carefree?
· What gave you energy — and what drained it?
· What did you try to control that was actually outside your control?
As I think about my intention for 2026, I'm using some of these reflection questions as a guide. How about you? What are the powerful questions that help you look backward and forward as you begin the new year? Feel free to share them in the comments.