New Moon Ritual for Achieving Success

The new moon gives us a chance to set intentions and focus ourselves in a direction that’s in-tune with our values and our goals.

It’s January 12th and the first new moon of 2021. What does this mean? It means we have a chance to set intentions and focus ourselves in a direction that’s in-tune with our values and our goals.

Live Your Values Challenge Free Course — https://courses.mindfulsuccesscoaching.com/courses/4-day-live-your-values-challenge

The first thing is ensuring that you know what your values are, and that you’re on the path to living those values. If you’ve got them, then fantastico! We do have a free four day course to help you on that.

A new moon is the time to plant the seeds of intention, of what you desire to achieve; in less woo-y language, your goals. Though we focus on the development within that drives the external success. As the adage goes, wherever you go, there you are, which means understanding your motivations, values, and ethics will provide you with more sustained achievement than a special planner where you check off boxes. I am NOT making light of planners *hugs my planner lovingly*. A planner is a tool, not a methodology for achievement alone.

Set an intention

Pillars for productivity and livelihood, health and wellness, curiosity and creativity, and relationships and community

The phases of the moon provide us with a time-based and shared basis for setting and achieving goals. Since the new moon is when we plant our intention, it’s important to create an intention that nourishes your soul. I look at our pillars of happiness and think which area needs some focus right now. For myself (Heather) I’m choosing to focus on the health & wellness pillar. The reason being, is my values of learning, travel, performance, connection, and compassion all require my health and wellness to be in optimal form, and I struggle most with goals and intentions in these areas more than others. By paying attention to those values, and to my own deficiencies that can derail them, I’m able to use the new moon ritual to keep myself progressing on this path of self-enlightenment and growth.

Now is when I look at the area of intention, and create a focused intention statement. For example:

So my intention for this cycle of the moon is to eat a plant-based diet, something I’ve been doing off and on, and somewhat struggling with. With cheese in the world, it’s a hard thing to be perfect about. As a written statement, I can look at it in my beloved planner, or on my phone, tablet, etc. as a reminder what I’m focusing on for the next two weeks.

Intention, or focus, isn’t enough. I can dream and hope to win the lottery or to have a clean house, but if I don’t buy a ticket, or pick up a sponge, it’s not going to happen. So the next step is to break down this intention into small, manageable tasks or habits that can be done each day to push the intention to a successful completion.

My tasks are:

Clear out the fridge
Set a plant-based meal plan (I have chosen Forks Over Knives, since I like that it doesn’t rely on processed vegan foods)
Grocery shop for items on the meal plan
Do meal prep
Eat the prepared meals
Avoid driving through anywhere
Have healthy plant-based snacks at home and work

What small tasks or habits would help support your intention? Perhaps your intention is to connect more with others, would reaching out to one old friend a day be a helpful task? Calling someone? Finding a Meetup group? Maybe you want to focus on productivity and livelihood, so you set up your planner to support this and follow it, or download a productivity timer such as Pomodoro to help keep you on track. There are infinite possibilities depending on what your intention is.

Key point –

DON’T overpromise to yourself, that’s a recipe for disappointment, anxiety, and depression. Also, don’t give yourself something that’s so bare minimum it makes no impact. These tasks/habits should have some challenge, but not be insurmountable. It’s good to reasonably challenge yourself. Thinking about your intention and the micro steps you can take to be successful, what will you choose to do?

What’s next?

We’ll come back and check in on how these micro steps are going, and how your intention is working in one week. Think about how easy it is to do something for a week, and how much you might achieve in that time! I have every faith that you can do it, and we can do it together.

Categories: : Productivity, Self-Care, Moon Rituals, growth