Using intentions to steer your course & why I prefer intention setting over goal setting alone:
What is intention setting? Intention setting involves creating guiding principles for yourself to live by in all areas of your life. When we set an intention - it helps shape how we show up in our relationships, commitments, work and so on.
Why do I prefer intentions over goals? Though goals can be powerful tools - one shortfall I have found with them through my own experience and words from clients is that they focus too much on the end result, and not enough on the process. Once a goal is gone, whether it had been achieved or not - it is no longer there to fuel motivation. Let’s say you had a goal to run your first marathon by a certain date - but failed to meet that mark by only a few km. When we invest so much of our criteria for happiness and satisfaction in the goal - it’s easy to become dismissive of our own progress and lose sight of the amazing achievement of almost running a full marathon by your desired date!
Now let’s say we set an intention to partake in some level of physical activity every day, coupled with a goal in mind that can serve as a direction for your intention to lead you towards. Now that we’ve shifted our focus on the process, we’re more likely to meet our goals by being more intentional in the present as opposed to fixated on a future result. But more importantly - if we don’t finish that marathon by our chosen date, we are no longer susceptible to discouragement and falling off track with our activity - because we’ve become fulfilled and fuelled in knowing we continued to show up day in and day out for ourselves and the process.
In summary - goals alone are momentary, intentions are always. When coupled together with an emphasis on focusing on the here and now - our long term potential can skyrocket.
I hope this was helpful!
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