I’ve just purchased my seeds for next spring’s garden and I’m excited to be growing shiso and two kinds of parsley this year. As an action and a metaphor, this is the time to gather your seeds.

Many of us groan when we hear the question “Did you make any resolutions this year?” Looking over my 2020 goals I have to laugh. While I actually reached a couple of those goals, the majority of them got cast aside. Reality is completely different than it was when I set those goals. Things that felt important then feel less so now. Goals of 2021 begin something like: “hug parents and friends in 2021,” which of course is out of my hands. But it goes deeper than that. How do we change a society one person at a time? How do we each accept accountability and responsibility for our role in perpetuating oppression and ending it? And how do we do anything about it in the midst of a pandemic and quarantine?

It’s easy to make goals and harder to fulfill them. I, for one, am guilty of being unrealistic - fantastical even - about what I am capable of doing with my time. So I’m hoping to be more humble with my goals this year. But I also want them to be deeper, because my vision is clearer than it’s ever been.

Some of my goals are common like “exercise 4-6 times a week” because I know when I take care of my body and mind, I am a more patient, present and loving person. Some of them are exploratory, like “learn more about time space theory and how it relates to Chinese medicine.” And some are about a slow and steady building of knowledge, like “separate your seedlings, or you will grow a bunch of tiny, crowded vegetables like last year!”

Each book, article, and essay I read from a voice of the underserved, underseen, and undervalued teaches me more about my own role in undoing a system of oppression. One thing I’m proud of about the goals I set for myself last year, is that I’ve learned a lot more about how to spend my money. We live in a capitalist society, so our money is our voice. Our money is our intention. If you sport a “Black Lives Matter” slogan anywhere in your life, I hope you are also making an effort to spend your money at Black-owned businesses that are struggling during the pandemic even more than their white-owned counterparts, support organizations and legislature that improve the lives of Black folks, and educate yourself via Black media, literature and history. See the bottom of this article for resources on how to support Black businesses and Black lives.

Goals are easy to set but hard to fulfill. I talk about this all the time with patients. When people come to see me they usually have a sense of what needs to change in their lives. If they’re coming in for body pain, they know they need to stretch and exercise more. If they’re having digestive issues, they know the foods they should be avoiding to feel better. If they’re having sleep issues, they know they need to take space from screens and true crime shows before bed. We talk about details and new ideas, but the baseline goals are already intuited by the patients themselves. Still, even knowing these things, realizing goals can be difficult.

It’s important to understand the true intention of the goal and see if we feel good about that. Which goals come from something to prove and which from a genuine desire to make life better for ourselves and others?

For example, I want to drink less caffeine. I’m a pretty wired person, I don’t need anything to hype me up and I notice digestive problems, sleep problems and anxiety as side effects of caffeine consumption. So I know that my reasons behind this goal are sincere. Then I look at why it’s hard for me to do.

I like the ritual of tea in the morning.
I’m defiant: I already gave up coffee, which I loved, just let me have my black tea, okay?? And then another reason has become evident:
I love the taste of black tea with cream and honey. It brings joy to my senses and starting the day with a book and a cup of tea sets me up for a good day. So now I’ve picked apart the goal and what is holding me back and I’m trying to come up with a realistic solution. As much as I’m sure it would be good for me to also give up honey and cream, that isn’t the goal and it’s part of the reason I love the caffeine. So lately I’ve been trading off between low- or no-caffeine options instead of black tea, but allowing myself to have the cream and honey. And I find that this is okay. Perhaps at some point I will give those things up, too, but not yet.

If we spend the time to pick our goals apart and see what our reasons are, what we have resistance to, and what we are just fine without, sometimes the goal can be reached without much stress.

Often the reason I can’t meet all my goals is that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day. So I remind myself there are seasons for things – literal seasons and also figurative ones. I’m more athletic in the spring and summer. I love to walk and bike and kayak. I just do less of those things in the winter. I love to read books, but I tend to do less of that in the summer. Could that be okay?

Oftentimes realizing goals benefit from a ritual. A longing for ritual is one of the distinctions that make us human. Mostly we think of ritual in a religious or spiritual context, but we are performing rituals all day long. Food is a ritual, grooming is a ritual, bedtime is a ritual. This winter we are deprived of many of the joys and comforts we are used to, so I am thinking about how to create more ritual in my life as an act of savoring what I do have. I also think rituals help us to incorporate our goals into our day-to-day behavior.

For those with a goal of meditation, 10 minutes of meditation before bed can become part of the ritual of tooth brushing, picking out clothes for the next day, stretching, setting the alarm clock. A breakfast ritual can involve taking your Chinese herbal formula or supplements as the greens steam or the eggs cook. Or set an intention for the day while sipping a cup of (in my case decaffeinated) tea.

Ritual is intentional. So much of what we do on the day-to-day can be done without intention or even presence. But then we miss the opportunity to bring intention and meaning into the way we do the dishes or walk the dog. Grooming is an opportunity for self care and self love. Cooking is a way to nourish ourselves and our pods. Finding creativity in the way we approach our outfit choices for the day or our kitchen organization expresses our unique identity and moves liver qi that is constrained by all the sitting and stressing we are doing during the pandemic.

It seems that goal-setting has to be approached in the same contradictory way we should probably approach our lives: we must set expectations and steps to reach our goals, while also being wildly flexible about outcomes and accepting of all the unexpected things in life that come along. One of my lifelong favorite quotes is by John Lennon: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Balance must be found between being so goal-oriented that you miss out on what life has to offer and just letting life cast you about as though at sea. Some focus and orientation is necessary. Some drifting and spontaneity is crucial.

We have to be willing to let life lead us. We have to have the intuition to say: I don’t know where the path is leading, but I am reasonably certain that it is the right path and so I am going to put one foot in front of the other as long as it feels right. And, if I’ve taken a wrong turn, I recognize it, regroup and carry on without guilt or shame. A reasonable amount of uncertainty is inherent in any plan – when we see that this is an offering and not a flaw, life becomes more of a dance and less of a struggle.

Back to resolutions, goals, ideas, whatever you want to call them. Whether we believe in a higher power, destiny, the cosmos, or sheer willpower, we all have a course to follow in this life and in doing so we leave our little mark on the world. What it all means is for each of us to figure out individually. But we feel good when we are challenged to use our strengths to benefit the world around us and to lift ourselves up in the process. And each of us knows there are lots of intentional little actions we can take that help us stay on our path. This time of year offers a check-in on how we are doing with our big dreams, our little goals and our daily rituals. Together these perspectives shape our thoughts and our actions. This is how we can affect change for ourselves and the greater good.