If you know me, you know that I don't like New Year’s resolutions and refuse to do them. Generally, I find them restrictive and negative. I believe there is a time and place to take on a challenge, but I don’t think that needs to be the primary way to picture the year ahead.

I know many folks also use a one-word theme for the year. I really like this practice and have found it helpful in the past. But for the way my brain works, it doesn’t have enough meat on the bones. I crave space to think about ideas, outcomes, and the future, but it’s just that I want to do so from a place of creativity, wholeness, and abundance.

I've engaged with a desire-based approach for the last few years for my year. For each year, I focus on 20 desires. For 2020, I did 20 desires. For 2021, I did 21. For 2022, I did 22. You get the point. This has been one of the most helpful practices for me. It helps me imagine the year and take action that is aligned with my true desires. I return to this list monthly, reflecting on what I discover about my desires — which ones I can mark as completed, which are still in progress, and which have shifted. Each month is an opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with myself about what I really want, and I always learn something.

This year, I noticed some things. I noticed that:

Some things haven’t changed since I started, and I like that.
Some desires didn’t become reality, but I wanted to carry them over to the new year.
Some desires didn’t become reality, but I was happy to cross them off and leave them because I no longer wanted them anymore. And I felt zero guilt or shame about it.
This practice grounds me and helps me feel motivated and engaged with what matters most to me.

I also noticed that there were themes and different categories to the desires. So, that’s how I created this method which I’m calling the 3x5 method. The 3x5 Method invites you to name three intentions in 5 main categories in your life. The specific things you choose for each category should be based on your desires, embodied intuition, and authentic motivation. They are the things that, a year from now, you'd be genuinely excited to say that you had engaged with. This method intentionally tries to move us away from shame, guilt, or the pressure of traditional goal setting.

This is what it looks like.

Values: What are 3 values you aspire to embody this year? What makes you choose these 3?
Relationships: What are 3 relationships you want to invest in and why? Are there specific ways that you want to do that? Of course, all our relationships are important, but it can be helpful to think about which ones you want to have extra intentionality with (family, friends, neighbors, mentors, therapists, and other kinds of support…)
Learning: What are 3 things you’re excited to learn this year? (Skills, practices, paradigms, frameworks, etc…) These can range from short-term or long-term and can also be more professional or personal.
Centeredness: What are 3 ways that you will be rested and centered? Basically, what are some things that will help you be centered physically, spiritually, or emotionally?
Outcomes: What are 3 outcomes you would be excited to see happen by the end of the year? This one is related to goals but is really trying to help you prioritize what is genuinely motivating and exciting.

Here are the ones I chose for the year to give you an example of what this could look like and show that I do take my own medicine.

It’s been really fun to see people engaging with this. One person said this method feels “motivating and unrestricting.” Another person told me that they usually struggle with goal setting but found it life-giving and even surprised themself with what showed up on their list. Another reached out and said she would try this with her middle school students, which I love.

Of course, you can do this with pen and paper. But I also wanted to share the template I created for it in case you’re like me and feel it’d be fun to turn yours into a personalized graphic. This is a Canva link, so when you go in, you can download it.

Goal-setting doesn’t have to feel like punishing yourself. I believe in goals that flow from your authentic self and desires.

What methods do you use that work well for you? And would you try this one?

The 3x5 Method for Designing Your Year