So you are ready to embark a journey to making changes in your life. To this I say: “Yay! How exciting!” You are ready to mold the magic of your story, moving in the direction you want to go.
The question remains: How do you get there? In my experience, change is always best directed when there is, well direction BUT as someone who gets easily sucked into the realm of going way too hard to the detriment of my self care, goals have always felt very obsessive to me. Instead, I offer you intention setting. Intentions are a bit looser and less quantitatively driven than goals, but they still help align your actions with your wants and values, driving yourself forward to where you want to go.
For me intentions serves as a way to:
1) Effectively commit to a new habit
2) Foster greater action aligned to my values
3) Deeply connect me with a Big Why and in that, my affects on other people
4) Be holistically in tune with myself
Ready to set an intention? Let’s get started.
Goals vs. Intentions
I prefer setting intentions over goals, because I find intentions to be more forgiving. As someone who easily becomes obsessed with doing EVERYTHING with 110% effort, goals often leave me feeling burnt out. I tackle the goal to the point where I do nothing else. It’s not very sustainable.
Intentions on the other hand, ask me to let go of some of the control. They ask me to trust the process of life. Intentions, ultimately, allow your desires to unfold with a little more spontaneity and a little more flexibility.
Progress via intentions is slower, but it’s also more all encompassing. It defines a feeling you want to embody for yourself not just an action you want to complete. An intention is to lifestyle as a goal is to life event.
The Two Part Intention
There are two major components to setting an intention:
The Feeling
First, an intention embodies the feeling you would like to cultivate in your life. Often intentions begin with themes around love, trust, connection, and capacity. Think big picture personalized to you as an individual. Take a look at these two sentences:
I will get up at 5:30 am each day so I can write.
I intend to start my morning in such a way that empowers me to pursue my passion of writing so that I can help others by sharing my art.
Which seems more meaningful to you? Which would serve to motivate you more? Which offers a greater amount of open ended-ness? If you are like me, it’d be the latter statement. Why? Because it contains substance. It contains a feeling that I hope to create in my life. In that way, it goes beyond a simple desire and turns into an experience. The more personal an intention is to your specific hopes and dreams, the more likely it is to spark lasting change, the more powerful.
The Purpose
Second, an intention contains a personally relevant why. Why you are doing something is just as importance as what you are doing because it generates more meaning. Knowing your why helps you define your purpose. How will your intention serve you? How does the intention benefit your life as a whole? Knowing your why is a powerful motivator. As described in this Ted Talk by Simon Sinek and this video by Micheal Jr., knowing your why changes not only what you do but how you do it. It allows you to filter out what will not serve you and make room for more of what does. This is why it’s so important an intention contains a greater purpose. It’s more meaningful and it’s more likely to last. Take a look at those two sentences on more time:
I will get up at 5:30 am each day so I can write.
I intend to start my morning in such a way that empowers me to pursue my passion of writing so that I can help others by sharing my art.
Which one of these phrases sounds more powerful? Which one connects to something beyond myself–my higher purpose? That last sentence defines the feeling I hope to experience–an early morning pursuing my passion. It also defines why I hope to experience it–so that I can help others lead more fulfilling lives. Helping others in this way, I feel is my true calling. I educate children, I teach yoga and I teach through my writing. Adding such a phrase into my intention, defines my why, making it just a little easier to get up at 5:30 am.
I set intentions all the time. I set intentions for the day, sometimes for the hour and sometimes for the year. There is not perfect time frame. There is not limit on how many intentions you can set and there is no rule as to how an intention is manifested. Letting go of some of the control and trusting that your heart can be your guide is the foundation of an intention setting. It’s also the foundation of living a life of fulfillment. What do you hope to manifest in your life? Give intention setting a try.