It’s Time to Plan for 2025

The first initial draft to create meaningful and sustainable new year intentions

Fall sunset in Encinitas, California. Photo: Per Håkansson.

I’ve just finished my daily 4,000 yards swim practice (eq. to the swim portion in a Triathlon) and enjoy some fruit in the beautiful Southern California fall sunshine. The sky is light blue and cloudless with a fresh crispness hanging in the air.

I grab my book, walk over to the hot tub, greet some familiar faces, sit down and then slowly glide in. My body reacts happily to the hot soothing water after 160 laps of pull, kick, and glide. Swimming is harder than it looks.

Only four months ago I was huffing and puffing after 80 laps with a breaststroke technique of a six year old. Today I’m 30 percent faster, use half the number of strokes per lap, and swim twice the distance. Consistency creates progress.

Breath is priceless

My breathing capacity has improved tremendously and I can stay under the water much longer, extending every stroke and kick to a longer, faster, and more efficient glide. It’s really like night and day.

With that achievement comes bragging rights in the hot tub, when I’m not hidden behind a really good spy thriller, lost in the thrill of great suspense. The older swimmers are impressed by the distance, the younger swimmers by my age.

Swimming in a pool every day is what I would consider a real luxury. I need few things these days, just trunks and googles, and am not just surviving, i.e. not drowning, but thriving in the water, having a lot of fun and getting better.

Setting clear intentions

How did I get here part from working out, first every other day, and now every day except one weekly rest day? Well it began in December last year by setting clear intentions for 2024.

1. Improve wellbeing and fitness

2. Build deeper relationships

3. Create positive impact

When I wrote down those three things I wanted to get away from the usual New Year’s resolutions of not doing this or that, and instead creating a way of being, a personal lifestyle that I could live anywhere, with low impact and high output.

I wanted a restart away from the never ending chase for more and instead focus on better, starting with myself and then letting it spread outward. And I can tell you, positive action is the real cure for all that mindlessness the world offers.