Mindful Mondays: 2023 in Review
The problem with goals, the power of process, starting the year with intention
For me, 2023 started out with a storm. Chelsea and I were tucked away in a mountain cabin for New Year’s, and the heaviest rainstorm of the year threatened to batter down the walls and wash out the road home.
When we finally made it back to town and got cell phone reception, my inbox was flooded with hundreds of “New subscriber” updates for Mindful Mondays. What was going on? Was I being targeted by some kind of bot swarm? No: my article about Past Year Reviews had been featured in Tim Ferriss’s 5 Bullet Friday newsletter, which goes out to roughly 1.5 million people.
I started the year on a high of momentum. The surge of interest brought in new readers and coaching clients, and gave me a burst of motivation for my writing. At that point, I’d only been writing Mindful Mondays for 2 months, after taking Write of Passage in the fall (shoutout to Cohort 9!). As one mentor put it, I was getting my “15 minutes of internet fame” much earlier than I’d expected.
The Funny Thing About Goals
Riding that wave of momentum, I started out the year with some ambitious goals for my business and my writing. And for a while, those goals provided me with a source of motivation. But there’s a funny thing about goals: once we set them, anything short of achieving that specific outcome can become a source of frustration and disappointment.
When the changes to Twitter’s algorithm throttled my reach, I got discouraged and eventually stopped writing on that platform.
When my therapy practice (and many other therapists in the U.S.) experienced a downturn in business this summer, I started to worry about money.
When my shoulder got injured in jiu-jitsu, I stopped training (or rather, switched to physical therapy and T’ai Chi).
In other words, I failed to achieve most of the specific, outcome-oriented goals that I set for 2023.
For a while, this bothered me. But then I realized the problem was with my approach. Even though, as a therapist and coach, I “knew better,” I’d fallen into the trap of focusing too much on the outcomes, rather than the process.
Outcomes are outside of your control. Your process is within your control.
When you focus on outcomes that are outside of your control, you set yourself up for the possibility of failure—and with it, frustration and disappointment. When you’re failing to achieve your goals, your motivation dries up.
On the other hand, when you let go of outcomes and focus on process, you empower yourself and find peace independent of what happens.
Given the level of chaos, tragedy, and sheer unpredictability that is playing out in the world today, there are many, many things that are outside of our control. If we want to stay sane and show up as the kind of people we want to be in the world, we need to focus on the small things that are within our control. This will look different for everyone, but for me it includes things like my meditation practice, my writing practice, and how I show up with my clients, family members, and friends.
The Power of Process
The best parts of my year were the areas where I focused on doing what I was doing for its own sake, without worrying about the outcome:
Writing and publishing Mindful Mondays every week, consistently, for over a year
Helping my therapy and coaching clients heal from old wounds and build the lives they most deeply desire
Taking online courses like Write of Passage (Cohort 10), Photography for Creatives with
, and EFT Professional Skills 2 with ACEPTraveling, spending time with friends and family, and getting out into nature
Meditation and mindfulness practice
Although 2023 was a tough year for me in some ways, I’ve learned a lot, grown a lot, and had some wonderful experiences along the way.
Part of this was because I had the psychological flexibility to pivot when something I was doing wasn’t working. Part was because my core value of learning drove me to reflect and learn from my mistakes and failures. And part was because I’m extraordinarily lucky to have the partner, friends, family, mentors, and other resources that I have to support and inspire me.
From Goals to Intentions
In light of my experiences this year, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking in the last month about goals.
For some people, setting SMART goals and turning them into concrete action steps will still be the best approach. But for this year, I’m experimenting with setting more relaxed “intentions” instead. Here, I’m defining intentions as directions I want to move in, aligned with my values, rather than specific milestones to reach.
I’m planning to write more about this approach over the coming weeks, so if you’d like to learn more, stay tuned.
The Best of Mindful Mondays
It’s been a great year for Mindful Mondays, as I’ve written a number of essays that I’m proud of and that seemed to resonate with readers. If you’ve been with me throughout the year, thank you! I hope this newsletter has inspired you in some way. And if you’re new to Mindful Mondays, welcome. Here are a few of my favorite pieces I wrote this year:
As we start the new year, Mindful Mondays has 698 subscribers. One of my intentions for the year is to continue to grow this newsletter while focusing on my writing process and creating content that is valuable and inspiring for you.
As I reflect on where to take Mindful Mondays over the next year, I’d love to have your feedback. What articles have you enjoyed most over the past year? What kind of topics would you like to see me write about in 2024? If you’re so inclined, please take a moment to reply to this email or leave a comment letting me know.
Thank you for reading,
Chris Cordry, LMFT
PS: If you’d like individualized guidance in reflecting on your past year and setting intentions for 2024, 1:1 coaching could be a good fit for you. Just reply to this email with “coaching” and we’ll set up a free 20-minute call.
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A great reminder to focus on the process and not the outcome.