A few months ago, I was visiting my daughter and came across this list of Intentions taped to her bedroom mirror. Her colorful page drew my attention.
What I realized is that when we write our list of intentions as a reminder of what we intend for our life, we become focused and inspired.
Intention: a thing intended; an aim or plan
When we strive for recovery, and let go of an addiction of any kind, we need to make a plan for our new life. We strive to change our habits, find our passion and create a new way of living. Writing our intentions can set the tone for our day, our month, or our year. It’s like a shopping list that reminds us of what we need.
Part of the process of living mindfully, intentions are powerful tools to define our life. Our list of intention can be a road map which helps us find our way.
The word “inspire” is “about giving breath or giving life” and suggests that simply expressing our intentions in a different manner makes them so much more inviting and fun to pursue. As we think about what we want to do, visualize ourselves doing it and write in the present tense as if it is already happening. It will be a constant reminder of the changes we want to make.
According to Trisha Keel of Tomorrow’s Key, “In feng shui, there is an extra boost available for manifesting one’s intentions. It’s called the Three Secrets Reinforcement. This entails using the mind to visualize what it is that you want, verbally stating what it is that you want, and finally, using the body in a movement of some sort to symbolize your intention. This movement can be a mudra – a symbolic hand position or gesture; another movement that means something to you – like crossing yourself; or anything at all – like dancing a little jig. It can also be the movement required to write it down.”
Writing down what you want sends your request through to the universe.
There is enormous magic in writing things down. When starting something new, setting intentions sets the mood, creates the framework, and defines your attitude.
Intentions allow you to be in alignment with your purpose. The key with intentions is to focus on what you want as opposed to what you don’t want. Use strong positive words. Write your intentions as though you already have what you want. Be positive in your attitude. But, most importantly, WRITE IT DOWN!
Now after we have written down our intentions. How do we begin to make those changes in our life?
There are four basic ways:
1. Get started, just a little at a time: Our tendency to do nothing can only be remedied by taking action. Once you get going, you begin to build momentum. For example, if you wanted to start a walking or running program, start very slow. Walk or run around the block, then a half mile to a mile and build from there. If you decided to bring meditation into your life, just start by sitting for one minute, at some point move to five minutes and possibly work up to twenty minutes. Find what is doable for you and then start. Once you get going, you will find the flow.
2. Take Responsibility: We can all let ourselves get lazy and let other things take over. A little outside pressure can help. Invite a friend to make the change with you. Join a group or take a class if you want to bring a new habit into your life. Sometimes, when we’ve paid money for something, we are more motivated to show up. Our family, friends or a support group with real people or online, can be a wonderful source of encouragement.
3. Accept that there will be slips, failures, relapses: We will sometimes give in to temptation when we are trying something new in our life. Have a plan for slips, accept that they will happen. There is no need to feel that because you had a slip, you cannot make the change in your life that you desire. Failures are not about you as a person, they are about the behavior of giving in. We all make mistakes. Learn from it and move on.
4. Motivate yourself: Just because you feel pressure to do something, this may not be enough. You need to find the desire within yourself to make the change. Focus and determination will pull you towards your goal. Find ways to reward yourself for a job well done. Think about the positive way you feel about your progress or how you feel when other people notice how well you are doing. Find different ways to treat yourself and include these into your plan. Tell others about your plan and let them help to motivate you.
Sometimes, the best lessons are the ones we learn from our kids.
Happy Father’s Day to all you dads!
What are your intentions for this year? Have you written them down? If so, how has it worked for you?
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I love your daughter’s list of intentions! Something that has helped me over the years achieve my intentions is taking your #1 and “writing it down” a step further, and that’s to actually break down a intention into smaller pieces and write those pieces on a calendar (being sure you don’t overload a day or you won’t get to it). It helped me stay on track so that I was doing a little bit each day or week or …. Another one was (and still is) to set aside worry time. For me, part of what would get in the way of getting to my intention was worry or fear. So, I’d make a worry list and schedule time each day to look at the list and “worry” (ask myself if there was anything further I could do, whether I should postpone or move ahead or ….). After that, no more worry for that day and that freed up so much mind space with which I could then do/think about other things (like accomplishing my intentions!). Thanks for this post, Cathy.
Great ideas, Lisa. That is so important to break down each intention into the steps it will take to get you to completion. Whatever we can do to make it less overwhelming and something that we are confident we can do helps. I love your worry list idea as well and giving time to focus on your concerns, maybe even writing some of them down in a journal helps release them. When we focus on what we want, we find a way to make it happen.
Cathy: I thought this was a great post and it is so true. In order to create what we want, we need to have the intention and believe it will come true. You have a very wise daughter. I loved her list. I am sure you have instilled so much wisdom in her
Hi Sibyl,
When we write our intentions and focus on what we want, our goals tend to happen. My daughter is wonderful. As much as I would love to take all the credit, she has developed into an amazing woman from her life experiences. Thanks.
Cathy, I just stumbled upon your blog this morning and love it! As a person in recovery for 23 years (I joke that my drug of choice was “more”) I am very passionate about helping others avoid some of the things I went through. I have a dream job with The Partnership at Drugfree.org and really appreciate that you have a link to our web site on yours. I am currently recruiting “Parent Ambassadors” for our organization and hope to have one in every state within the next 2 years. I currently have 14, so I have my work cut out for me. Would love to chat with you about this and how we might collaborate. Thanks so much and keep up the great work. P.S. Would love a copy of your e-book too! P.P.S. You should definitely check out my girlfriend’s blog – it’s called BHereToday and it’s on Word Press. It looks like you have some things in common, including the A-List Blogger.
Hi Becky,
Thanks for visiting Treatment Talk and for your comment. I would love to connect with you as well and will send you an email. Just fill in the info. to subscribe, and you can download the ebook. I encourage you to subscribe and you can opt-out at any time.
Hi Cathy,
Great post and good for your daughter!
As a part of my work on intentions, and a class I am taking called Accelerating Abundance, I’ve created a purpose plan that gets reevaluated every month. The plan includes stating -and claiming- how my life is (the equivalent of intentions), then writing five mental alignment statements and five emotional alignment statements. I review them daily during my meditation time. There are a series of action steps (that is where the monthly evaluate comes in) and the trick is to not attach to any of the items. They aren’t written in stone, only on paper and are always subject to “do-over.” There is no pressure to these intentions, only a gentle way of treating myself well while still moving my feet.
Can’t wait to dig more deeply into your blog because we do have a lot in common!
B Well!
Hi Beth,
Thanks so much for sharing your work on intentions. Your purpose plan sounds interesting. There is so much value in taking the time to make a plan in whatever form it takes for our life as we go along. It helps us to focus, observe where we are now, where we are going and our feelings about our progress.. Appreciate you visiting Treatment Talk and your comment.