Intention & Actions

Hi everyone!

I had some musings about intention today; how it works, why we do it!

An intention is anything you “set your mind to”. An intent can be anything from “Self-compassion” to “I will be productive today”. The point of any intention is to set a direction of energy and therefore a direction of action. When we set an intention to be self-compassionate we set the direction of energy in and around ourselves to be gentle and loving and we begin to align our actions with that energy. We don’t criticize ourselves as much, we allow ourselves to make mistakes without being mean to ourselves, and we may even start to feel love for all of the parts of ourselves we previously saw as flaws.

Have you ever heard of mind over matter? This is what intention does. It takes the energy of our thoughts, and even our thoughts about our thoughts, and funnels it into the energy of our intentions.

Of course, intention without action is useless. We tend to hear stories of intention that seem magical, as if millions of dollars winked into existence at the feet of someone who intended to be wealthy.

The truth of this is the person’s intention was backed up by their actions; most likely doing research into investments, putting in more hours at the office, finding a new job, or even just being more productive and confidant in their abilities leading to promotions and other bonuses.

When we intend to be productive, it will come to nothing if we don’t go to the office and take the first step toward getting our paperwork done. If we intend to be productive and then sit on the couch in our pajamas our actions are contradicting our intent. And why would the energy of our intent override the energy of our actions? More than anything, this starts to get confusing, frustrating, and dejecting. We start to believe we aren’t powerful or worth what we want. But you are!

As you can see, the magic of intention is a two-step process; intent and action. We cannot intend to be successful, self-sabotage at every turn, and then expect the intention to magically turn the energy of your self-sabotaging actions into the energy of success. When the energy of your intent and the energy of your actions are working together, rather than fighting each other, anything is possible! And you remember how powerful and valuable you are!

Thanks for reading!

Liz

Creating Mindful Balance