Last month, I had the distinct pleasure of attending an AIGA Hampton Roads presentation given by Matthew Muñoz, chief design officer and partner at New Kind. His presentation, Designing a Year, was all about applying the skillsets we use everyday in our jobs to our personal lives—to achieve goals and take intentional action.

It was an incredibly timely event for me to attend because this concept was something I’d been turning over in my mind for several months. You see, I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly made them in the past—and failed to keep almost every single one. Why is that? I think it’s because I didn’t view any of the resolutions I’ve been making all these years as truly empowering. They were based on taking things away from myself and doing things I dreaded—lose weight, eat better, give up soda, etc—even if they’d make me “better” in the long run and were sort of things I wanted. They were “nice to haves.” So I decided I wasn’t going to make any more of these stupid resolutions. Instead…