What is an intention and how do you set them?
I recently ran an Intention Setting workshop to begin the New Year. Now you might be wondering what an intention is and how you set them, or maybe even why you would want to set intentions.
This is a process that I use with my clients to gain clarity and focus and direction in our 1:1 work.
You can set an intention for your day, your week, or your larger life goals. You can set them regularly, check back in with them and change them, they aren’t set in stone.
Ready, set, intention
Take a moment to think about a word or statement that is meaningful to you right now. Think of this word, words, or statement as giving direction to your energy.
It can be a useful starting point to consider how you would ideally like to feel, if you could feel any way that you want to. Take a little time to brainstorm and jot down ideas in a relaxed way. No need to overthink it. And remember it isn’t set in stone – you can change your mind. This is a process, it isn’t something that you can get wrong.
Calm, relaxed, peaceful, joyful, happy, healthy, strong. It is your word and can be anything you want. Our intention gives us focus. It gives us focus for our behaviour, our actions, our energy, it’s something to come back to if we are unsure about a decision. Does it align with your intention?
Words are powerful
When we’re talking about intention, it’s not like we’re just hoping for things to magically happen. But we do know that words have meaning and power. And that we can focus our attention and train our minds. And we know that those are things that we can do. And that will affect the way that we behave and the way that we feel.
What we say to ourselves really matters. So the way that we speak to ourselves, in our mind is important, and has an effect on the way that we feel. So one thing that I’d love you to start to notice in this process is the way that you speak to yourself in your mind. And maybe you’re already aware of that, and how that will affect the way that you feel.
Where we send our attention and our energy, and our focus will make a difference. So that is why our intention is so important.
Intention and the subconscious
The mindset piece is important. Such a high percentage of what we do is based on automatic programmes that are subconsciously programmed. These are our belief systems. Many of these run so that we can go about our lives efficiently. So that we don’t have to consciously think about all of the many things that we do over and over every day. We just do it.
We run on these automatic programmes that are based on beliefs, and alot of these beliefs were established before we were seven years old. We create most of our belief system before we’re seven.
If they were taken on that early in our lives, then many of those beliefs may not align with what we now want as adults. We haven’t consciously decided what beliefs will serve us best, we are holding onto those passed down to us.
What we can do is start to shine a light on what our beliefs are, and whether they serve us. Because we can change them if we bring awareness to them. We can decide if we want to change those beliefs.
You don’t have to change all of your beliefs, some of them might be useful to you. The belief that we need to brush our teeth every day is quite a useful one, and it serves us pretty well. You don’t think about brushing your teeth every day, at the time that you do, it just happens, you do it. That’s an automatic programme that runs pretty well.
But there are other beliefs that are not necessarily as useful and may well be holding you back from doing the things that you want to do.
The belief system is what drives our behaviour and the way that we feel. So that’s why it’s important that we do start to become aware, at least of what’s going on there. Become aware of the beliefs that we have, so that we can make a decision about whether it’s serving us and whether that’s going to support the behaviour, the actions that we want to take, the things that we want to do.
The intention setting process
- Write down your intention. This is a word, words, or a statement that is meaningful to you. Start by thinking about exactly how you want to feel? Your intention is your north star. Your intention is going to give you direction and focus for your energy.
- Consider what you want, and how that looks. How does your intention manifest into reality. How does it actually look. Write down a list of things that you want. And that can be as wide ranging as you want it to be. This is your time to explore exactly what you want. To create a working list.
- Shine a light on all of the limiting beliefs that are holding you back from doing the things that you want to do. We have all got them! What are they, what do they do, how they work and how we can move past them.
The way that this process works is by connecting back to what is authentically meaningful to you. It is not about what you feel you should be doing, or what is expected of you, you are going to be considering what YOU truly want.
If you would like some support and guidance with Intention Setting you can purchase my 1 hour workshop here. The workshop includes 1 month access to my Happy Healthy membership, where we meet every Monday live to check in with our intention.