Setting Intentions, Or Not, Can Be a Deal Breaker For Achieving Goals for Business
and Life Success
Intentions. What are they?
They are basically a purpose or objective for achieving something. If you have a goal, you set an intention to achieve it.
Intentions come in all forms and sizes. It could be something as simple as setting an intention to clean the house on Saturday morning.
Anything is possible if you set intentions or live with intention.
Some of the areas in life and business that we can be intentional are:
Before we talk about how to set intentions in each area, or how being intentional can change our lives, let’s understand a little bit more about intentions.
Understanding Intentions
When you set an intention, you are opening up to receive what you want. Think about setting intentions as a guide for your day, week, month, or year. If you want direction, you have to establish it upfront. An intention serves this purpose.
When you set out to go to your friend’s new house, you use your GPS, or Waze, to give you step by step directions. Likewise, when you are setting goals for yourself, you need to intentionally map out the actions you need to take to get to the finish line, to accomplish the goal.
Just like driving to your friend’s house, there are multiple routes you can take. There may be construction or heavy traffic, or God forbid an accident, and you’ll be redirected. But you can still get there.
The intentions we set are like GPS. As long as we’ve set them and we have a goal to work toward, we can use the intentions as our road map.
It’s about taking intentional action.
The Power of Intentions
The power of intentions comes from stating what you want, declaring your goal or desire, and how you want it to happen. When setting intentions, we are more likely to take action than to leave the result up to the life events happening around us.
Intentions aren’t about manifesting material things, I guess they can be, but they are more about our emotional well- being. Kelsey Patel refers to it as the mind, body, and spirit triad.
Intentions should be set based on overall goals and objectives for the well-being of mind, body, and spirit, which collectively will include our brands and businesses because this is life as a whole. In other words, there has to be intention with the intention.
Have Gratitude When Setting Intentions
When setting intentions, it’s also key to have gratitude for the blessings we’ve already experienced or have. Approaching intentions with gratitude, allows us to come from a place of peace, not want and scarcity. Gratitude, for example, for previous successes or successful relationships takes us to a mindset of confidence, not fear or desperation that comes from thoughts of scarcity.
There is no time limit to intentions. Intentions can be set monthly, weekly, or daily, but no matter the timeline, we must remind ourselves of them and take time to focus on them daily.
When setting intentions, start with a mantra. Incorporate the mantra into your morning routine. Write it when you journal, say it when you meditate, say it when you take your lunch break, and again at bedtime. Say it as often as you need to keep it front of mind.
Deepak Chopra wrote: “The ancient Vedic texts known as the Upanishads declare, “You are what your deepest desire is. As is your desire, so is your intention. As is your intention, so is your will. As is your will, so is your deed. As is your deed, so is your destiny.” Our destiny ultimately comes from the deepest level of desire and also from the deepest level of intention. The two are intimately linked to each other.”
Just like our personal brands are linked to our whole being, our desires and intentions are woven together.
Setting Intentions for Life and Business
Relationships
If we want successful relationships, we can’t leave them up to fate. We have to take action and set intentions to communicate, to show love, kindness, respect, and vulnerability. Relationships with family and friends, colleagues, and clients, are all a two-way street. We have to set intentions for being present in the relationships if the relationships are going to blossom into something deeper.
Listening
Are you a good listener? If you are, I commend you! Cheers to you!
Being a good listener is so much easier said than done. How often do you deeply focus, and when I say you, I’m referring to me too when having a conversation?
I’m guilty of going on about my work, and even worse, picking up my darn phone when my husband or kids are talking to me. It’s awful. Thank God I catch myself now and stop before I commit the ultimate insult!
But in all seriousness, listening intently is hard. Our lives are going so fast-paced around us that we often have surface conversations instead of truly listening. Listening with intention is something that we all need to do more of, listening with our mind, body, and spirit, to show respect to our families and friends as well as our colleagues and clients.
If we don’t listen with intention, two things happen. One, we miss out on important information and feedback, and two, we insult the one speaking to us.
Intuition
Do you follow your gut? Intentionally listening to our intuition can be so powerful for our overall well-being and the well-being of those around us.
Our gut tells us things all day every day. Little warning signs to slow down and really think before acting or a rush of pleasure that tells us to proceed full speed ahead.
Listening to our intuition, our gut talking to us, is key to making good decisions in life and business.
It can also impact how we treat others. Our intuition – the Holy Spirit – is powerful at picking up the world around us and the needs of others. It could be something as simple as noticing someone seems down and intuition prompting us to ask how they are, to give them a chance to express themselves or ask for help. Intuition can also save us from harmful situations.
Be intentional about listening to and following your intuition. Don’t ever ignore those gut feelings. God made the body so intricately that it communicates as an entirety; gut to mind, mind to the gut!
Goals
Goals. Desires. Wants. Dreams. Those things we want but our mind sometimes gets in the way of them. In order to achieve goals or have our dreams come true, we have to be intentional about setting them and taking effective action to accomplish them.
It isn’t enough to set a goal and sit back and wait for them to come to fruition. We have to intentionally establish an action plan to achieve them.
Start by stating the goal out loud. Then journal about the goal and the steps you think you need to achieve it. Next, tell a friend or family member about your goal so that you have an accountability partner. Someone who will call you out when you are getting in your way and someone who will praise you when you’ve taken action to achieve the goal.
Setting intentional goals includes setting goals that are achievable through intentional action. If we set unachievable goals, intentional action may not get us there. It’s important to be realistic so as not to set ourselves up for failure and then fall into a place of no confidence and a scarcity mindset.
Strategy
Whether talking about relationships or goals, we have to have a strategy in place. We have to have intention around who we want to serve and how we will serve them.
If we want a successful brand, we have to set the intention for telling our story and sharing enough about ourselves that we can become recognizable and memorable and build trust.
Strategy comes into play when creating content to tell the world our story and welcoming others into our community, and our audience so that we can ultimately serve them.
Have an intentional strategy that provides clarity with what you do and who you serve.
Be intentional with differentiating yourself by creating content that demonstrates your unique skills and the value you provide.
It’s important to have an intentional strategy to build an action plan that allows each action step to propel us forward for another action that will ultimately lead us a series of actions to achieve the success we want.
Social Media
I can’t forget to mention this. Social media has beautiful benefits for building relationships, staying in touch with family and friends, creating community, collaboration opportunities, and attracting clients.
But, social media, if not used with intention can lead us down a rabbit hole of comparison, and imposter syndrome resulting in a lack of productivity so that our intentions are never accomplished.
Be aware of when you are picking up your phone. Are you using it as a numbing tool? Do you pick it up when you are sad, frustrated, overwhelmed, or anxious?
When you pick up the phone, are you picking it up with intention of posting, engaging, following up with someone, building relationships, or creating collaboration opportunities? Be mindful that each time you pick up your phone you are picking it up with a specific intention in mind. And if you don’t have an intention in mind, put it back down and focus on the intentional action you were working on previously.
If you begin practicing intentional social media use, you’ll see a big difference in your productivity level because you won’t be as distracted or succumb to comparison or imposter syndrome as often.
Self-care
Lastly, be intentional with self-care. Keeping with the GPS analogy, if your gas tank is empty, you will not be able to serve others with intention. When you are tired, you can’t listen with intention.
Without regular exercise, your body won’t have the energy that you need to push through the long days of taking action to accomplish your goals. When you don’t exercise, your body isn’t as healthy and therefore your mind isn’t as healthy. The mind needs the endorphins released with exercise to help boost energy and creativity. Exercise can also help decrease anxiety.
It’s also important to be intentional with your mental health. Take breaks. Journal, meditate, block out time for daily devotions, and time to reset. Doing so will help you find joy which will help you stay positive when it’s time to do the action items that aren’t as fun or take more patience.
Practicing gratitude will also help with maintaining a sense of peace, joy, and patience as you implement your intentional action plans for business and life success.
A Little Intention Inspiration
I want to leave you with something fun and inspiring.
If you haven’t seen it, check out Justin Bieber’s music video or listen to his song with Quavo titled “Intentions”. I’ll include the link to the video in the show notes.
If you found this episode helpful for being more intentional, please share it with family and friends who might need to hear it too. And let me know your favorite takeaways in The Female Entrepreneur Insider Facebook Group!
To learn more about your host, Robyn Graham, click HERE.
