Intention Over Resolution: Finding Your Place on the Road This Year
Intention Over Resolution: Finding Your Place on the Road This Year
January often arrives loud—full of pressure to decide, commit, and fix ourselves.
At One Life Van Life, we choose a quieter invitation.
Instead of resolutions that demand change, we pause and ask something gentler:
How do I want to live?
How do I want to feel as I move forward?
Recently, our Adventure Together community gathered for a reflection on intention setting—guided by Jennifer Medina, PhD, a clinical psychologist and longtime advocate for intentional living. What emerged wasn’t a list of goals or a plan to hustle harder. It was something far more honest: a shared willingness to slow down, listen inward, and honor where each woman truly is.
Because before we ask where we’re going, it helps to ask:
Where am I on the road right now?
Why Intention Over Resolution Matters
Goals and resolutions often focus on doing more, fixing more, becoming more.
Intentions are different.
They invite us to focus on how we want to be—not just what we want to accomplish. They offer flexibility, compassion, and room to evolve as life changes. Instead of punishing us when we fall short, intentions gently guide us back to what matters.
January, as Jennifer shared, isn’t always a season for action. It can be a time for quiet contemplation—letting clarity surface naturally before the energy of spring pulls us forward.
What Happens When Women Pause Together
During our gathering, Jennifer guided us through a short meditation—inviting breath, grounding, and connection with the heart. From that space, women began sharing their intentions in the chat.
Most were just one word. And yet, together, they told a powerful story.
The Intentions Women Are Carrying Forward
Women in our community named intentions such as:
Self-compassion
Balance
Kindness
Community
Onwardness
Slowing down
Focus and patience
Creativity
Play
Peace and beauty
Letting go of self-judgment
Opening life up while moving more slowly
None of these were about striving harder.
All of them were about living more honestly and fully.
““Intentions aren’t about becoming someone new.
They’re about remembering who you already are—and choosing to live from that place.””
Where Are You on the Road Right Now?
Instead of asking What should I do this year?, we offered a different reflection:
As you look at the year ahead, where do you feel like you are on the road?
At a trailhead, just beginning?
Refueling, restoring your energy?
Taking a detour, honoring a change in direction?
Finally on open highway, moving with momentum?
Or parked and resting, because rest is part of the journey?
Where are you on the road right now?
There is no right answer—only an honest one.
Van Life as a Practice, Not an Escape
At One Life Van Life, we don’t see van life as an escape from real life.
We see it as a practice.
A practice of slowing down.
A practice of listening.
A practice of choosing presence over pressure.
The road has a way of reflecting where we are—physically, emotionally, spiritually. And whether you live full-time on the road, travel part-time, or simply feel drawn to a different way of living, the invitation is the same:
You get to choose intention over urgency.
Living Intentionally, Together
What made this gathering meaningful wasn’t just the meditation or the insights—it was the shared presence. Stories of slowing down, evolving abilities, grief, healing, creativity, and joy reminded us that intention isn’t static.
It grows as we grow.
This community isn’t here to push anyone forward.
It’s here to walk alongside one another, noticing when we drift—and helping each other return.
As one member reflected during the call:
“You’re recognizing. And that’s huge.”
An Invitation
Intentions don’t require perfection.
They don’t need to be achieved or proven.
They ask only that we notice—
when we’re aligned,
when we drift,
and when we gently return.
So pause. Reflect. Adventure Inward.
At One Life Van Life & Adventure Together: A Womens Vanlife Collective, we don’t believe in rushing people into big leaps. We believe in walking alongside women as they listen for what’s next—on the road, in their lives, and within themselves.
Wherever you are right now—trailhead, detour, open highway, or resting—you belong here.
Thank you Jennifer Medina for your meaningful message.
Adventure In to Adventure On.
