Happy Spring!! It is officially Spring (even if it doesn't feel like it where you are) which means it's time to set your intentions for a new season.
Intentions are separate but a part of the system of identifying needs, living by your values, committing to habits and working toward a goal. They are an important piece to the roadmap (all of which I explain in my 5 Day Soul Spring Cleaning Challenge...if you haven't signed up yet, you can do so here).
So today I'm going to walk you through how to set your intentions for Spring (or for whenever, really).
Here we gooooo.
1. Start with your values.
Your values determine how you want to feel as you navigate through life. They're like the music you choose in the car on your journey you could say. So if I have an end goal of getting married, my values would be how I want to feel in my relationship working toward that goal. Free? Passionate? Committed?
From there, you set an intention which is taking that feeling and making it an action. Ex: I will promote freedom in all capacities of my relationship.
Everything you do in your relationship moving forward should be with the intention of feeling free and allowing your partner to feel free. This keeps you aligned with your values, ensuring you always feel fulfilled!!
2. Be specific.
It's not enough to say vaguely what you will do to be intentional in aligning your life, but be very specific in HOW you will do it. Your intentions turn into habits which then lead you toward or away from your goals, and toward or away from who you want to be ultimately.
Ex: I intend to promote freedom in my relationship today by letting my partner express themselves openly without any judgment or critique from me. VERY SPECIFIC!
3. Note what doesn't work.
If you catch yourself not sticking to your intention, write down why. What body cues happen just before you go the wrong direction, what are you thinking...what emotions cause a detour for you. Then, when you wake in the morning re-read this list of responses just before you set your intention, and shift your new intention to be that you will look out for these responses throughout your day.
4. Visualize yourself being intentional
I like to set my intentions just before I get in the shower...(takes me literally 1 second) and then when I'm in the shower I visualize what I intended coming to fruition. How it will feel, what the end result will be, how it's making me the person I want to be.
5. Consistent Action
You can set new intentions daily if you want, or you can pick one and keep at it until it's a habit. You can set different intentions for different domains of your life too, and then just focus (intentionally 😉) on which one you'd like to bring to the foreground that day.
So that's it, your beginner's guide to intention setting! Doing this daily will help you align your needs, values, habits, and goals to get you to be the best and most authentic version of yourself.
Remember that setting intentions is a personal practice, so customize it and use these steps however they work for you best.
Happy intention setting!!
