How many times have you created a New Year’s Resolution only to drop it by January 14? Why put yourself through the pressure of beating yourself up and feeling bad? Ditch your New Year’s Resolution and try a more empowering approach to bettering yourself in the new year.

It’s no wonder we have a hard time sticking to resolutions, we’ve got so much pressure: from expecting change right away, to the negative voices in our heads, to thinking we have to make big changes right away. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed and quit.

Here’s my solution to stopping the resolution downfall: Create a yearlong-intention. This is a heart-defined purpose and focus for the year. For instance, this year my intention was to just be. That’s it. And I came back to it over and over all year long. When I was feeling overwhelmed, I remembered my intention to just be and it made everything more managable again. How do you get to an intention? Think about one thing you want (for instance: to eat healthier), then ask yourself “If I did this, what would I have” (if you ate healthier, what would you have?) Take that answer and ask yourself again “If I had this, what would I have?” (If I ate healthier, I would have more energy). Do this until you get to an answer that feels right to you (If I had more energy, I would have a greater appreciation of life. Having an appreciation for life would be your intention for the year).

Once you have your intention, then you can support it by choosing different ways to act on it. For instance, if your intention is to love yourself more, you get to define how you do that: from getting more hugs to journaling your thoughts and feelings every morning. And when you find yourself in a place of not knowing what to do, you can ask yourself “How can I be more loving to myself in this moment?” and perhaps you’ll have your answer.

Coming from intention is easier than keeping resolutions. Resolutions keep you tied to an outcome. Intentions keep you in your heart all year long in various ways. No matter what you do to support your intention, your year will get better as you go along.

At the end of the year, write out a list of 100 ways you stayed true to your intention. Feel proud of your accomplishments and next year create a new intention to live by or stick with the one you’ve had all year!