Everyone groans when you talk about making New Year’s resolutions, don’t they? Keeping resolutions feels like a chore.

Resolutions rub me the wrong way. They’re a headache and something that no one really wants to do. However, people resolutely trudge through the failures of their new year resolutions … knowing full well that even as soon as they’ve set them, that they probably won’t keep them.

So I’m resolving this year to break the tradition of resolution failures. Instead, I’m going to set intentions.

Intentions feel (and sound) way more positive. A positive intention means the same thing as a “good intention,” which hopefully all of us have already! So let’s all enter this new year with good intentions, shall we? Let’s do it together!

Repeat after me, “I intend to maybe exercise more this year. I intend to be nice to myself, even if I don’t exercise more this year. I intend to eat healthy most of the time or maybe even just a little bit more often, and if I don’t eat healthy, most of the time, I will still feel okay and know that I’m a good person. I intend to hopefully spend less money, I intend to hopefully save more money, and I intend to hopefully have more money in the bank at the end of the year! And if I don’t have more money in the bank at the end of the year, I intend to try again next year.”

See where I’m going with this? It just feels gentler, it feels kinder, and it feels more attainable!

One of the intentions I need to set and actually really hold myself to fulfilling is an intention to spend 2025 planning the 50th anniversary for this organization. I plan to do that in part by videotaping lots of little videos every month throughout the whole year so that when we enter the 50th anniversary for People Plus in January 2026, I will have recorded an entire year of the fun activities that happen here!

I told Jill I was thinking of setting an intention to shoot a little video every month of everything that happens, but then I realized that feels a little overwhelming — it feels more like a resolution! So, I think I’m going to set an intention to try to videotape most things that happen here with the goal of getting some video of some things — most of the time. That should work!

Part of this intention is to capture the positivity that happens here at the People Plus Center. The place is filled with “do-gooders” who do nothing but good all year! Whether it’s through serving meals, offering and teaching classes, playing games with friends, taking trips and adventures, or simply coming in for a cup of coffee and to build a puzzle, nearly everything that happens here is happy. Or at least that’s the intention.

Although, I have to admit that it was not my intention when I took this position 13 years ago to become such a ‘goody-goody two shoes’!

Because seriously, I had no idea that I would fall in love with so many of the People Plus members. That I would have co-workers that feel like family, or meet business partners who give unconditionally to support older adults and teens.

And despite my best intentions, it has truly changed me … luckily, for the better.

So, as we finish up another amazingly good year at the People Plus Center — where we saw more than 26,000 in-person visits, served nearly 10,000 meals, gave over 4,000 free rides and expanded our Teen Center so it will see over 5,000 youth visits in the coming year, — it is with the best of intentions that I wish you all a very happy new year!

And… what if in the new year, we all set an intention to become do-gooders? To become people who do just a little bit of good for ourselves and others — maybe even every day?! I think we can “do it”!

And I resolve to keep that good intention!

Stacy Frizzle-Edgerton is executive director of People Plus, a Brunswick-based community center focused on seniors and teens.