January is the month of possibilities – a surge in motivation for new year’s resolution

Minming
Jan 19
4 min read

Updated: Jan 24

A popular question that gets asked by colleagues, friends and family at the start of the year to kickstart a conversation would be “What’s your new year’s resolution?”. It often stems from a point of curiosity – what matters to you, what are your hopes and dreams you wish to achieve in the span of a year.

Setting an intention

I’ve started making new year’s resolutions back in 2021. Regardless of whether I’ve achieved them or not, I think it’s still great to start setting an intention for the year (in branding terms it’s the brand’s purpose). This usually is the hardest branding exercise as clients struggle to answer why their brand should exist, why should it matter. This year, my intention was to “build my own universe”. That sounds lofty but I got inspired by great creatives and how they’ve manage to build a world that is so uniquely theirs, and so coherent. Think Disney, Wonka, and I’d also say Sabrina Carpenter did very well in her personal branding last year. It was with these references that I thought, I’d want that for myself.

Taking that intention, I broke that down into three main pillars that I’d like to pay more attention to in my life. What would it mean to build my own universe, the operating principles in branding. It’s the how you’ll live out your purpose. Three is a nice number because it’s not too little or much to accomplish in the year. So this year my resolutions are broken down into Health, Creative and Career/ Finance. Allow me to elaborate.

Pillar 1: Health

Health wise, the main goal is to lose weight, specifically 15kg by the end of Dec 2024. I think many may relate to this goal but I got a rude shock when I weighed my heaviest in Dec 2024 and knew I needed to control this before my metabolism slows down further. But if you were to ask me why, I’d say the underlying reason is to understand and develop a healthy relationship with my body. Not just physically, but mentally and spiritually too. I think losing weight is a journey in itself that can help to facilitate that and in some ways make it very tangible.

Health may not necessarily link to the intention of building a universe. But it is a key component to ensure that I can meet my goal without burning out and destroying myself in the process. Therefore forming the first pillar which is ultimately the most important.

Pillar 2: Creative

Remaining creative has been hard in being an adult with limited time spent across multiple responsibilities and roles in life. As such, it’s something I need to prioritise before it slips through my fingers. I’ve always wanted to build a side hustle of it, and to create consistently. But it is truly so hard to start. I’d even confess that this post is a way for me to live up to this pillar right now. An avenue to create, even if it’s just words in a minuscule space in the ever expanding internet space. I’ve always had so many creative ideas but the inertia to put them together, the self-imposed limitations and ego get in the way. This is my way of starting something to truly try embracing “Done better than perfect.”

The connection to building my own universe is clearer and more direct in this pillar. However, the struggle is still real. How do I want to present myself on social media platforms, on the internet? I overthink way too much and I know finding a niche is important, and defining myself is key – but also very frustratingly narrow for me because I like a bit of everything. So this is still very much a work-in-progress.

Pillar 3: Career/ Finance

Lastly, it’s work. While I can’t control what kind of work I’ll be doing (that’s for my company to decide), I can decide the skills I’d like to develop and that is one of storytelling. It’s super important to keep an audience engaged and there are many components to this – from deck content structure and design to oral presentation. So that’s the main goal for career, and one that’s useful to spill over to other areas of life – how I’d communicate with others and create positive influence. A small side quest is to then save 40-50% of my salary – which should be manageable.

This links back to creating a universe because it helps me to articulate what my universe would be. Not just visually but verbally, how do I identify and engage with an audience that likes what I do and how I can create a positive impact in their lives – no matter how small.

And that’s how I’m gonna kick off 2025! With these three pillars and my intention, I use Notes app on my phone (nothing fancy). I’ve also written them down in my journal as it marks the start of the new year. Since January 1st, I’ve started working on Health pillar by keeping a weight/meals/steps tracker and a fitness tracker on Notes too. Tracking has been quite effective for me to notice change and progress. I’d also like to mark this post as a small win towards Creative pillar, and I’ll aim to post more consistently to see this grow. Till the next!