So you want to start living more intentionally but when it comes to setting intentions how do you start?
I think that often when people start thinking about intentions they start setting goals. But goals and intentions aren’t the same. There are some really important differences. Let me explain…
The problem with setting goals
So firstly let’s talk about goals, because chances are you’re super familiar with these. After all, most of us have been taught about goal setting from a young age and that’s carried through into our working life.
Goals, we’re taught, should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. In the workplace where our performance is often assessed based on our goals creating clear metrics for success is essential. But framing goals in this way means they become binary. Either you achieve your goal or you don’t. So when it comes to intentional living setting a goal to live your life by can create a huge pressure.
That’s not to say there’s not a place for goals. I often set myself goals that fall out of my intentions as a way to motivate myself. But importantly I don’t get too hung up on whether I’ve achieved my goals provided I’m living by my intentions.
When the focus is on intention you remove the binary pass/fail of goals and can shift your focus from failure to progress
So what are intentions?
For me intentions are about thinking about the life I want to create and how I want to feel, which set the path for my approach to intentional living. Think of intentions as your guiding principles. There’s no limitation on what your intentions can encompass.
Let me give some examples to show you what I mean. My intentions for the past few years have been broadly the same:
- Create a gentle family rhythm that gives us time together to spend in nature
- Make time to nourish myself mentally and physically
- Live with energy and focus
- Create a welcoming family home
These aren’t the same as a goal because there’s no measurable output. So how do I know whether I have achieved them? It’s simple, my intentions should leave me feeling happy and fulfilled. I know that when I start to feel adrift and unfulfilled I need to refocus on my intentions.
What should intentions be?
I often think that setting goals without your intentions is like setting off on a journey without a map. Sometimes it’s a straightforward journey you can navigate easily. But sometimes you can end up feeling totally lost. But when your intentions can be anything how do you start?
If you’ve never set intentions before then vision-boarding can be an amazing aid. You can either go for an old school collage vision-board or create a digital one using Pinterest or simply saving images to a dedicated folder on your phone. Alternatively set some time aside to journal – thinking about how a perfect day might look for you can be a great way to start if you are stuck.
Ultimately you want to think about what matters to you and how you would live your life if you didn’t have the interruptions of the everyday (and by that I don’t mean what would your life be like if you won the lottery). From this try to distil these ideas into 3 or 4 statements of intention.
Once you have your intentions you may want to develop these further into several statements setting out what that intention encompasses. For example for my intention of “Create a gentle family rhythm that gives us time together to spend in nature” I have the following statements:
- Pay attention to seasonality and embrace the joy of each season
- Create memories through family adventures
You may find that there’s some overlap and links between the statements for each intention – that’s totally fine! After all your intentions have a single purpose: creating a life you love.
Is there a place for goals?
I’ve said above that I can often set goals to motivate myself. At the start of the year I like to look at my intentions and statements and come up with two or three goals that link into each. Sometimes I fulfil these goals and sometimes I don’t. But they all contribute towards fulfilling those intentions.
So continuing with the example above, for “create memories through family adventures” a goal might be to set aside a day a month for a family outing in nature. If I were to make this a SMART goal it might look like this:
- S – Set aside a day a month for a family outing in nature
- M – At the end of each month I can look back a point to at least one day where we’ve had a family day outside
- A – Yes – we can find time on a weekend for and can fund at least one trip a month.
- R – Relates to my intention of creating a gentle family rhythm that gives us time together to spend in nature
- T – Each month in 2022
You can see how fun-sucking setting goals in this way would be – I would never usually use SMART for goals like this. But you can also see how difficult making a goal “relevant” would be if you haven’t set your intentions first.
How often should you set intentions?
As I mentioned above, my intentions don’t actually change that much over time. My intentions for 2022 look a lot like those for 2021 but I like to spend time at the start of the year thinking about and refreshing my intentions. It helps me to assess and refocus.
But I also like to think about my intentions for the month ahead at the start of each month. Usually these monthly intentions look a lot more like the statements that sit under my overarching intentions and I can often find myself setting goals as a result. To give an example, last month one of my intentions was to spend more time outside as a family and therefore I set myself a goal of having a long Sunday walk together at some point in the month. This of course fits into that overall intention of creating a gentle family rhythm that gives us time together to spend in nature.
There’s no hard and fast rules of course and you may find you want to set or re-evaluate your intentions at any time.
Has this post helped you think more about setting intentions? If you have any questions send me a message!
