Setting Intentions: Adding More Reeds to Your Basket - Week #18 of The Awakening Journey

Remember a few weeks ago we talked about how containers are metaphorical baskets that hold all the “stuff” of relationships, interactions, and experiences of life? And the tighter the container, the greater the integrity of the relationship?

Well, this week we are adding tools to your toolbox and more reeds to your basket. 

Intentions and Intentionality are a couple more of the reeds used to create containers. I really want to take a moment to pull these two words apart and look at them at a deeper level.  

While nuanced, it really matters how we pay attention to these two reeds of the basket that makes up our container. 

What is an Intention?

An intention is who you are “being” in the world. Intentions are setting us up for who we are “being”. 

What is Intentionality? 

Intentionality is bringing mindfulness to what you are doing. Intentionality is how you go about your life.  

How Do Goals Fit In?

I get asked this question quite a bit. What is the difference between a goal and an intention?

An intention is who you are being while you are achieving. A goal is what you are achieving.

Goals are something that you achieve and are accomplished and checked off the list.  

For example, at one point, my goal was to run a successful business and grow the company.  Be a good executive. I used to execute like crazy. I could go into the office and run business meetings all day, develop people, get things done. Things were sometimes frenetic, intense they were long and stressful days.

Eventually, I saw I was missing an intention. I didn’t have a focus on who I was being. And I wasn’t living my work life with intentionality. As soon as I set an intention about who I wanted to be while I was achieving, my work life changed completely. The quality of my interactions went up, people acknowledged my leadership because how I was showing up was different. 

Energy follows attention. That’s where the intentionality comes in. Intentionality is where you point your attention. And what you focus on is what you create more of. 

 "When you focus on you, you grow. When you focus on shit, shit grows." - Dwayne Johnson

What happens when you bring awareness to this part of your container?

When you bring clarity to your container building, you are acting as a Leader from Within in your own life. When you focus on who you are being and how you show up in your life, you attract more of what you want.  

Simply setting an intention while achieving a goal implies intentionality, and this ensures execution unfolds in the way we want. 

When your container is strong, it is able to hold all this doing (goals) and the being (intention).  And as a result, you awaken further.

Not only do you awaken further, you model for others in your life around you. And there is a ripple effect to this that is unmeasurable.

“The law of attraction is this: You don't attract what you want. You attract what you are.” Wayne Dyer

This Week’s Practice

Every day this week, before you start your day, set an intention and write it down: who do you want to be all day while you are achieving your goals? 

Check in with yourself several times during the day and also at the end of the day to see what was different when you brought awareness to your intention. 

Next, we will talk about Meeting Someone Special, in the meanwhile remember the present moment is where your best life happens.

With love, presence and gratitude,

Darla