I’ve learned lots of lessons since moving to my cabin and mother nature has been the teacher for the majority of them. My favorite being, you guessed it, goal-setting!

Or maybe you didn’t guess it. I know, goal-setting probably wasn’t the obvious answer there.

Let me break it down for ya – I’ve noticed that the four seasons and their accompanying energies demonstrate THE ultimate framework for simple and sustainable goal-setting, albeit not mainstream in modern society (yet).

For decades now, the mainstream practice has been to set big new year’s resolutions and take aggressive action towards the goals therein on January 1st. BUT…you’ve probably heard that only 8% of us actually achieve our desired outcome.

Matter of fact, they’ve even pinpointed and named the day when most of us ditch our resolutions – January 19th, Quitter’s Day.

Which begs the question:

If new year’s resolutions aren’t sustainable, what is? Or am I the problem?

For starters, you are not the problem, my friend. And that’s that!

Second, us humans haven’t always done the whole new year’s resolutions thing on January 1st! Ancient Babylonians are believed to have set their intentions mid-March in conjunction with the planting of crops, which makes so much sense and we’ll get to why!

Then, in rolled Julius Cesar who tinkered with the calendar and made January 1st the beginning of the year. The tradition of setting resolutions on the 1st was a religious ritual dedicated to the gods.

Fast-forward a few thousand years and new year’s resolutions have evolved into a self-development ritual…

…a ritual worth our time but ready for a few tweaks!

This is where Mama Earth steps back in to show us a simple and sustainable way to set and achieve our goals. *Bonus, she won’t leave us hanging at goal-setting. She’ll show us how to get all the way to goal fulfillment.

Remember those ancient Babylonians and their mid-March intention-setting/crop-planting combo? Seasonally speaking, it makes a lot of sense because planting seeds and setting goals are similar to one another in many ways. It makes perfect sense why the Babylonians scheduled them both for spring. Seeds = goals.

So…*scratches head* if spring is the time to goal-set, what are we doing on January 1st??

Stick with me! Here comes the “tweak” I was talking about.

I’m about to walk you through the concept of seasonal energies, why the Babylonians (and many other cultures) were on the right track, and how the goal-setting process truly begins in the depths of winter. From there, everything else will snap into place and serve you for the rest of your life.

The meat and potatoes of this post: making a fundamental mindset shift from thinking annually to seasonally

We tend to envision our lives in twelve-month chunks. Culturally, we live those twelve months at a very high and consistent energetic pace until we crash and burn.

However, if we look to nature as a master teacher of balance (as Traditional Chinese Medicine has for thousands of years) we’ll find a different way to approach the cyclical nature of our lives that’s not a twelve-month sprint but instead a four-season flow! (We’ll apply this flow to our goals in a minute.)

Think of the year as a circle (see doodle below).

1. Let’s start at the bottom, which is the middle of winter, the winter solstice. (notice I said middle, not start)
2. As we move up along the left side of the circle we go through spring
3. Then we reach the energetic height (yang) of the year, the summer solstice.
4. From there we ride down the circle, going through fall
5. Until we reach the winter solstice again (the height of yin)

Notice how the fast + firey yang energy increases from winter to summer and the slow + grounded yin energy increases from summer to winter?

Seasonally speaking, there’s a time for that high-pace yang energy our society loves so much. It’s called summer. If an exercise routine is apart of your goals this year then summer is when you’ll be sweating the most.

Winter, however, is not the time for rigorous workout regimes or other energetically ambitious goals. Winter is a time of rest and dreams! As I’ve said in other posts, if summer is a firecracker on the fourth then winter is the slow burn of maple in the woodstove.

Is this starting to make sense?

You’ve got the basics! Now let’s look at an example of this four-season flow!

*Recall those ancient Babylonians and their seeds! Seeds = goals!

Let’s say you want to save more money in the new year. 🙋‍♀️ In the winter, you would start dreaming of what you want, how it would impact your life, how it would align with your values, why you want to save more money in the first place. That’s it. Your job is to dream of the possibilities, the seeds!

You’re building a strong foundation for your end result to grow from and come into existence. From there, you fall into the flow of the seasons until the cycle starts again. Here’s what I mean:

Now that you’re a pro at the seasonal approach to goal-setting, here are my tips for the winter phase:

Keep these tips in mind when picking out your seeds!

1. To get the ball rolling, reflect on the good that already exists in your life. After all, gratitude is the foundation for abundance.
2. Pick out as many seeds as you want but each one MUST be motivated by your intrinsic values. Don’t look to your ego for possibilities. Look to your core desires. Your ego will have a hundred seeds picked out. Your soul will not.
3. Your seeds must feel natural. “If you do not feel natural about what you want, you will not be it.” – Neville Goddard. In other words, do your goals/dreams/intentions feel aligned with Y-O-U?
4. If you feel like you have to doubt something, try doubting your own limits. Not your abilities.
5. Right from the get-go, January 1st, start practicing embodiment. In other words, feel the feelings you think you would have if your dreams came true. This will give you an energetic “leg-up” in the spring when it’s time to declare your goals!
6. Practice patience. You’re not expected to achieve your goals by February. There’s no need to force, push, or manipulate.

That last one is the key! Most of us fail at our New Year’s Resolutions because we try to do too much all at once. We force it rather than flow with it.

We force our goals because we want to see results asap. BUT little did we know that the fast track to results is the track of least resistance and organic action. That’s what makes my seasonal approach to goal-setting a sustainable one!

You’re up, love! Time to get dreamin’!

Take a few deep breaths, go for a walk in the woods, tune in. When you’re ready, brain dump your dreams onto paper. No need to fully flesh them out with numbers and dates and actionable steps yet. Don’t forget that this is the playful/fun phase.

I’d love to hear some of the seeds you’re considering for the new year, my friend! Share this post on Instagram and list a few possibilities! Be sure to tag me @ashleybredemus so I can cheer you on! Then pin this blog post to your Pinterest so you can return to it year-after-year.

Happy Trails in the New Year,