New Year’s resolutions never work well for me; I resist making them and when I have, they feel more like pressure in terms of something I have to do or haven’t yet done than they create something in my life that I desire. Working from intention, however, does work for me, so for the New Year I am passing on my “intention process” as it may work for you, too. Through many years of experience with this, which I simply discovered worked many years ago, here is what I’ve discovered:

Core principles
Make your intention something you truly desire at a deep level.
Make your intention something that benefits (or, at least, never harms anyone else).
Do one intention at a time; for some reason, doing more than one dilutes the process.
Be as specific as you can, but at the same time, do not be too wordy or demanding.
Do the “practice” below when you are in a clear space; in other words, even if something is on your mind, you can still really clear yourself to be fully intentional.
Don’t expect immediate results (although the intention may manifest quickly).
Pay attention to serendipitous events or symbols that relate to your intention once you have expressed your intention.

My intention practice
Before I share the “intention practice,” I want to mention that I am fairly sure this works well for heart-center Enneagram styles (2, 3 and 4). For mental-center styles (5, 6 and 7), the process may work best starting from the head center, and for body-center styles (8, 9 and 1), it might work best starting with the body-center. This is just a guess. Try it first the way it is explained below and if this doesn’t seem to work for you, adjust it to your type-based variation.

Go someplace where you are totally by yourself with no distractions.
Sit or stand and breathe gently throughout your body, and breathe particularly into your heart area so you experience your heart chamber as very warm and expanding.
Express your intention internally (not out loud) and allow that intention to circulate throughout your heart area, but also throughout your body including your legs, arms and head areas.
Allow the physical energy associated with your intention and the above step to move outward in front of you, while also sustaining your own internal connection with the energy of the intention. In other words, don’t send or expel it all outward!

Now, be awake and aware and see what happens.

A perspective on this practice
There are many Chinese characters with a variety of meanings for the word “intention,” but the Chinese character above is made up of two characters. The top character means “present,” as in being present and conscious. The bottom character means “heart.” Literally, it means the state of your heart in the present moment; what a great way to understand the meaning of intention! Another way of understanding this is simply that when we are aware of our heart in the present moment, we can manifest our heart’s desire (with a little help from our head and body!).