This is not to be confused with New Year's Resolutions, which has the energy of humans with normal human bodies forgetting to go to the gym by February and feeling a lot of vague self-pity/loathing about it. That's not what we do here.

New Year's Intentions, for me at least, are a deeply spiritual, mindful practice of laying out themes for the year, setting specific reachable goals, telling those intentions publicly and to your deities if you work with any, and following through on them for the year. It is a dedication, a commitment, and an intention. You may not hit every goal you set, but you have set the goal and you are aiming for it and you are making it known.

I actually track mine on an Excel spreadsheet- this is how my 2023 one is going rn:

For me NYI's are the strongest spell I do in a year. This year, for example, I've only read runes. It's been incredibly rewarding to focus on one thing, but it is going to be equally rewarding to do a tarot spread on Jan 1 when my 2024 Intention gets revised to "divination practice."

I'm really excited to start working on my 2024 Intentions this December. I need to change some of my goals - obviously, if I'm only hitting my weekly budget once a month I need to change my process - and there's some others I'd like to add. Tracking meditation and spellwork, for example. I also want to add a theme of sustainability, and focus on wasting less food- not sure how to quantify that, but it's a goal.

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i will try to do them quickly

For Day 1 of the 30 Days of Lunar Magic challenge, I had to go with all visualization. The original example uses fire to burn our intentions but, because I was experiencing excruciating muscle cramps to my arms, hands and legs, I couldn’t take the risk of doing more than light a candle.

So, what I did was light a white gardania candle to set the atmosphere and got into a calm meditative state. I then visualized myself at my altar with the candle and a piece of paper with my intention on it.

“I will become stronger and more in control of my abilities.”

As I lit the paper, I chanted that like a mantra until the paper was gone, a while smoke lifting into the air carrying my message to whoever hears my message.

Every year I cast my biggest spell of the year the week of New Year's by creating a spreadsheet (or multiple spreadsheets) of goals to track in the coming year centered on a theme. Is this "witchcraft as romanticized self-care," you ask? Yes. But I've made the intentions, I've told my gods, I'm telling all of you, therefore the intention is locked in, this is what I'm intending for myself in 2024. Please behold.

The first sheet is my measurable goals for 2024, as well as my affirmations for the year. Each time I do one of these things I get 1 point. I'll leave notes at the bottom of each month with exciting things, too, like the new places I've gone to or memorable experiences (ie getting a new tattoo).

As an aside, "finished meals" is to count each time I eat all the leftovers from something I've made. I have a huge issue with food waste- cooking food then ordering takeout, cooking food then deciding I don't want it and cooking other things, etc. I'll also add points here for any time I use up an item in my pantry that's either been around a while or that was a bulk purchase that's now been used up.

This year I'm also doing a 2024 bingo card, a technique I've shamelessly stolen from one of my friends because it's absolutely genius:

Ideally every block on here will be crossed off next December. In reality I'll be happy with a bingo. A lot of the stuff on here isn't even hard, it's just stuff I need to Executive Function, or remember that I want to do. These are all IBNUs (Important But Not Urgent) for me.

Finally, in this spreadsheet I have my new budget setup for 2024.

I've allotted what I plan to spend per month, with the quantities in parentheses broken down into what should be spent per week. As I spend money in those categories, I'll put them in per week, and color code them at the end of the week for whether I stayed on target or not. Read on for a full breakdown of how I budget-

In 2023 I tried to do a bucket budget of spending $100/week. It didn't work, not because it was too frugal but because I wasn't strict on budgeting my groceries, and also chose to order Grubhub rather than eating what I'd already spent too much money on, and then I didn't have money for the things I needed, and ended up going over budget constantly. I learned that if I allotted specific budgets to those areas then everything else would fall into place. I also realized that while I have a goal of giving to charity as I'm able, if I don't put it on my budget the only thing my money will be spent on is myself, so I made a column and an amount that has to be spent every month in donations. The last column is for me to track how much I'm saving in my House Fund savings account- it isn't filled in with a number because the good people of Tumblr don't need to know what I have in my bank account, lol.

This year's budget is $90 more per week than last year, but I was spending that much anyway by constantly going off budget. I don't follow the standard budget advice that "every dollar needs a job" because I feel that's advice by neurotypicals for neurotypicals, and if I give every dollar a job then spend more dollars than I have, I'm fucked. I give myself fake budget numbers that are under what I actually have, so if I go off target my bills will still be paid. My brain is more likely to stay engaged in Hard Mode challenges anyway, it's a win-win.

I should note my tracked budget is not my full budget- I don't need to count my rent because it's automatically deducted, same for the contributions to my financial advisor, same for my car insurance. My tracked budget is for the things I have to get a card out for.

Anyway that's my goals & intentions for the year. This actually isn't exhaustive- I don't see the need to add "gonna read books" when I read an average of 100 books a year, for example. I know I'm going to do that, I don't need to make an intention for it. These are the things I want to make sure I get to, with the appropriate motivational tools (spreadsheets! A point system! Bingo!!) to make sure I do the thing.