This last year has been filled with some of the deepest personal learnings I’ve had in the last decade. I shut down a project/business I had been working on since August of 2017 due to an intense burnout. I’ve struggled immensely with mental health issues for the entirety of the year. It’s only in the last few weeks that I’ve felt myself coming back to a stable baseline, almost exactly one year later.

Through all of this I’ve done a lot of searching for balance in my life. I’m trying to understand what ignites my focus, attention and what I need to feel fulfilled, centered and whole. While also ensuring I find time for rest, rejuvenation and self-care. Over The last few weeks, I’ve found a sense of clarity to my thinking. I think I have enough space from my burnout to where I can start looking forward with fresh, positive and enlightened eyes again. This sense of clarity has made it so that the pieces of who I want to become, what I want do to and how I want to do it are in focus. It’s a feeling I haven’t felt in years.

Inspired by my partner, and the way she decided to break out her goals for the new year, I decided to break out my goals into 4 main categories: Spiritual, Mental, Physical and Communal.

These are the 4 categories that I’ve identified need to be in harmony for my life to flow, my mind to be at ease and my anxieties to be at rest. They all play into each other in ways that enable me to cross over into each category with singular events, making it simpler to integrate into day-to-day responsibilities. For accountabilities sake, I’m going to outline each of my goals and the why behind them below.

Spiritual

Create more for the sake of creating, and consume less. Nourish the spirit by indulging in process driven creation.

Goal

52 weeks of creation

Mental

Exposure to the natural ways of the world. Keep impermanence in mind by experiencing the world around me. Learn to embrace uncertainty and discover comfort in delaying gratification again.

Goal

Spend minimum 30 minutes outdoors/in nature 3 times/week

Physical

Reconnect with your body. Nourish it through deliberate and natural action. Help your body move and behave the way it was born to by regaining muscle hypertrophy and recomposing the body.

Goal

3 days / week of recommended routine

Communal

Shift focus away from yourself and bring your attention towards your tribe(s). Make smaller circles and help the people around you by listening, offering services and meeting new people.

Goal

Minimum 30 minutes a day engaging deeply with people outside of the home or the office

Closing thoughts

2022 has the potential to be another year filled with uncertainty, doubt, hatred and fear. We may not be able to control whatever others are doing, the way things unfold before us, or the way nature decides to rectify the poor situations we’ve created. But the one thing we can all hold on to is how we look at those situations, what we decide to do for ourselves and others, and how we can approach each situation with an open curiosity to look for a solution instead of finding another thing to hate.