It’s very important that your intention is about what you WANT for yourself and not about what you DON’T want. Here are three intentions, the first three made incorrectly, and the following three made correctly.
THE INCORRECT WAY: My intention is:
- To stop being so anxious around people.
- I don’t want to feel scared anymore.
- To find a boyfriend
THE CORRECT WAY: My intention is:
- To feel confident and relaxed.
- To discover what it takes to be at ease and get support.
- To prepare myself to be ready for a relationship and get clear about what I want to attract.
What you ask for you will get, so if your intention is about what you don’t want, you’ll get more of what you don’t want.
Asking clearly for what you want is important so spend some time focusing in on exactly what it is you want. The process of focusing itself can lead you to a completely different intention than you originally thought you were going to set, e.g.:
“I want to be better at listening to my partner …. I wonder what’s difficult about listening …. I find it hard to listen because I am unable to relax and slow down… Maybe I need to find a way to centre, and slow down…” The end result of this inquiry is an intention to “get support to slow down, and become more present and receptive”.
An intention is:
- A way to keep your focus on what you want and what’s important to you.
- Self-development.
- A good way to inquire regularly and track yourself and your intention, asking “How am I doing with my intention so far?”
- A ‘landing pad’ that you can keep coming back to, a place to ground, centre, check-in about what’s important to you.
Use a 1-10 scale to see how it’s progressing, ask yourself “How am I doing with my intention on a 1-10?”. If your answer is a 10 your intention is completely met, and you’re done! If it’s lower than 10 you know you still have some way to go, and maybe some more work to do to reach that intention. Then you can wonder what that might be.
Your intention is about what deeply matters to you, and what you want for yourself, and once set it will begin to show you what’s getting in the way of you having what you want. When you can become aware of what’s blocking you, or holding you up, you can clear the way and move forward, or deeper.
It may be something about which you need to get support, talk to someone about, become aware of in your life, or consider more consciously, so that you can make the necessary internal shifts and nurture the new resources that are sometimes necessary when we want to grow and progress in our lives.