Living with intention

How to live your life intentionally - a five step process to making this a great year!

How are your new year's resolutions going? It can be tough to stay focussed when it's cold, wet and dark outside or when the day-to-day stresses of work or the churn and demands of family life cloud out our best intentions.

It's so easy to slip into a reactive, coping mode, but it's not so much fun and before you know it you’ve lost half the year! Sound familiar? It does to me.

Picture where you would you be and how would you feel at the end of the year if you’d found a way to work in alignment with your intentions, to consistently deliver against your goals? 2023 could be your best year yet!

If there's something that you care deeply about cultivating or bringing into fruition this year, whether it's a dry January, a commitment to being fit and healthy or an achievement you're striving for at work, I've created a five step plan to help you get on track and stay on track.

Step 1: Define

Step 1 - Define

We're not just defining goals here. We're not just setting objectives and being SMART about it. The most important first step is to find your why, connecting with your values and your purpose to discover what it is you really want. This adds a lot more power to our intention and will give us motivation, commitment and discipline to continue down the path of living intentionally in the long term.

1.1 Start with a list

What's on your list for this year? Your ideas could range from loose and broad "I want to be more present", "I want to invest in my yoga practice" to specific "I commit to dry January" or "I want a promotion".

After a week back at work your intentions may have started to feel a bit less important, a bit less real. So let's revisit.

Grab a pen and pad and make a list of all the things you'd like for yourself this year, whether they be goals or achievements, or ways of being or whatever else comes to mind. If you need help with this try the meditative practice in the side bar to connect in with your deeper desires.

Meditative practice to connect in with your intuition and identify your highest goals

1. Set your pen and pad close to hand.

2. Close down your eyes and bring your attention to your breath. Where can you feel it in your body? What other sensations can you feel, perhaps your connection to your seat / bed / the floor, perhaps you can detect your heart beat.

3. Draw your breath deeper into your belly and feel the rise and the fall with each inhale and exhale.

4. Connect in with the area that you'd identify with your gut feelings and reactions. Where is that and how does it feel? This is the seat of your intuition,creativity and feelings (the solar plexus, the manipura chakra in yoga speak).

5. Imagine yourself at the end of the year. Picture yourself somewhere you'd like to be, feeling content as you look back on your year. Take some time to visualise: what would you like to have achieved, attracted, created or cultivated?

6. Take your pen and pad and make some notes, staying connected with the belly and doing as little brain work as possible (the thinking mind needs some taming here, your subconscious is a greater source of deep knowledge).

Pick out 1 to 3 things that feel most important to you.

1.2 Go deeper

Let's build the motivation by exploring why these things are important to you.

Your subconscious has helped you come up with these ideas based on your underlying values and sense of purpose. To build more motivation for continued focus it helps to consciously tie your wishes to your deeper values and purpose.

Here's a little exercise to help you dig deeper:

1. Pick out one thing from your list that feels important to you.

2. Ask yourself why this is important and journal your answer (or answers, there may be a few).

3. For each of your answers ask why again, journalling whatever comes up.

4. This can be a messy process and you may go down a couple of dead ends, so take your time with it and be patient. Trust me, it's powerfully worthwhile, it helped me understand why I cared so much about doing my yoga teacher training! (That's another post yet to be written.)

You could ask up to five whys to keep diving deeper.

Example of the "why process"

I might say that I want to quit sugar this year. OK, so that seems pretty extreme to many, why do I want to do that? There are a few reasons:

1. I want to look my best. "Why?"... I want to be confident and free in my body, able to wear what I want, not worrying about whether my legs look fat in these jeans, when I sit this way etc. "Why?" Because those thoughts are exhausting, damage my self esteem and I've got better things to do with my brain. I want to feel good about myself.

2. Three of my grandparents died from Alzheimers, labelled by parts of the medical profession as "Type 3 diabetes". It's not a future I want for myself.

3. I don't like the binge behaviours I have around sugar and I want to be free of the addictive thoughts.

1.3 Flip to positive present tense affirmations

The next step is to look through your reasons and come up with one or more positive affirmations framed in the present. If we take my sugar example from above then my affirmations might be:

• I am fit and healthy as I age

• I feel confident and free in my body

• I am free from addiction

Now I understand better why this feels so important to me, and it will help the decision to turn down birthday cake to feel like the right one in the moment!

You might want to try out a few affirmations feeling into how true they feel for you. Your subconscious won't get on board if your affirmation isn't believable to you, and it may actually be detrimental… you can create a stepping stone affirmation that feels more true for you now and then refine as you go.

So what might have started off as an action oriented resolution should now have a bit more depth and meaning, feeling connected to who you are as a person and helping with motivation.

Step 2: Believe

'We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.' Buddha

Step 2: Believe

So you've spent some time defining your affirmations. Awesome! To get things flowing you need to believe them to be true. Why?

So there's two ways to work with intentions, consciously and subconsciously. We'll tackle the conscious in the next section, but first the subconscious.

The expectation effect

If you believe a thing to be true you'll perceive the world through that lens and you'll subconsciously take actions and exhibit behaviours in alignment with that belief. You'll see opportunities present themselves that a more negative mindset would have been blind to, and you'll believe that you're capable of achieving things you'd otherwise have been doubtful of.

David Robson's Expectation Effect has been translated to a BBC podcast series that is rather excellent.

The placebo effect

You're tapping into the physiological effects of belief. If you're wanting to work on physical or mental wellness you may as well cash in on the placebo effect to enhance any work you do.

Visualisation

How to build your belief:

1. You could do a visualisation meditation to focus on your affirmations and putting yourself in the place of having had those manifest. (could do a sidebar or point to the one above)

2. You could find a suitable guided mediation on insight timer - there are ones for being awake and for sleeping. Guided meditations can be really useful in times of distress, so might be a useful thing to dig out and bookmark in advance.

3. You can repeat often in your mind as you go about your day. Write reminders on your mirrors using a whiteboard pen, or in a journal.

4. Have a daily practice in the morning and / or evening of writing them out several times and feeling into the belief of them having manifest. Or read them out over and over.

5. You could record yourself saying them and play them back on loop in your sleep

Step 3: Plan

"If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail"

Step 3: Plan

Plan your actions

Now onto working with the conscious mind...

The reason most new years resolutions fail isn't because of a lack of initial motivation, but a failure to be specific on how you will follow through.

Right now you could be soaring high and feel unstoppable, you've set a resolution to do more exercise, you think you might be able to fit a morning run in a couple of times a week, maybe even a cold shower after "YES!", the excitement is there. But this same level of motivation most definitely isn't going to be there when you're wanting to snooze your alarm on a cold and wet February morning 2 weeks in.

You need to be specific with actions and times defined. You don't need to plan out the rest of your year, you just need to plan out what actions you'll take in the next week that are in alignment with your intention, e.g.

• I will download the couch to 5k app at midday today

• I will schedule the days and times for my runs in my calendar and follow thE app's instructions

• I will lay my clothes and headphones out the night before

Visualising this happening is an extra layer of prep and could be useful, especially if you add in visualisation of having finished your run and feeling AMAZING!

Perhaps leave the cold shower for week 2…

Be wary of going all in on Day 1. Be patient as you build new habits, let one settle in before stacking on another. You don't want to boil the ocean and completely change your whole lifestyle on day one. Building your habits slowly over time is more likely to mean sustainable behaviour change (James Clear's book on Atomic Habits talks eloquently about how to do this).

Support

What strategies can you put in place to support you? You'll want to be protective of your willpower; how can you build in time for unwinding, good sleep and deep rest?

Could you build connection with others on a similar path? Social media groups are great for finding people with similar interests or goals.

Realism

Be prepared for obstacles on your path to reduce willpower struggles when it gets hard.

What challenges do you anticipate? If you've tried to do this before but failed to stick at it what has derailed you. Brainstorm for 5-10 minutes with your trusty pad and pen, you might be surprised what comes up.

If… then… For each of these challenges what will you do in this situation. It really is worth writing this all down and really visualising the experience. Living it in your imagination starts building the right neural pathways, making it easier for you to follow through when it comes to it.

Also plan for failure. There will be times when multiple things come up that you haven't anticipated, there will likely be slips. What you can plan to avoid is a full on "what the hell" effect by having a plan to take the next right action.

Step 4: Action

Step 4: Action

Creating new habits isn't always easy. In the beginning you're connected with your why, you believe you can do it, you make an action plan for the week. But then life happens, other things come in that cloud your thinking, deprioritise your good intentions. And then in a moment of stress it's all out of the window; you just can't tear yourself off the sofa for yoga class, you can't get out of bed for the morning run, you can't turn the temperature down on the shower, or you take a bite of that birthday cake. And the "what the hell" effect kicks in, it's all out of the window again "I don't know why I ever believed in myself". This is so damaging to our self esteem and self belief. If we see this as a major failure then we'll stop trying. There are a few strategies for avoiding it all going up in smoke.

One day at a time

"You're not going to master the rest of your life in one day. Just relax. Master the day. Then just keep doing that every day." Unknown

Reconnecting with your intention daily and reviewing how it's going allows you to stay committed and to course correct if you feel you're steering off track.

For most of its journey, an aeroplane will be off course, yet it reaches its destination nonetheless. It does this with constant course correction… if you don't check in and review regularly you can get way off course pretty quickly and end up severely delayed or in a different destination altogether.

If you can make time in the morning when your willpower is high here are some useful prompts for self reflection (grab that pen and pad):

1. How did your day go yesterday? You could score it on a scale of 1-10.

2. Is there anything you can learn from your day, or want to do differently today?

3. What actions will you take today to stay in alignment with your intention?

4. How committed do you feel on a scale of 1-10?

5. If less than a 7 what can you do to get you back up the scale? (modify plan, visualise success, reaffirm affirmations, get some support)

At the end of the week review how your week has gone and make a new set of actions for the following week.

Be prepared for the hard bit

“Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.” – Roy T. Bennett

Let's face it, making big behaviour changes and implementing healthy habits isn't always easy, especially when we're dealing with addictions. There will undoubtedly be times when it's just sooooo damn hard! You need strategies for these times, and sometimes the strategy is letting it be hard and knowing that it will pass.

You're trying not to eat junk food and everyone at work has been shoving donuts and sweets in your face. You come home and your kids are baking. Your partner makes your dinner and suggests a treat as you've been doing so well. You've had a hard day at work, have a mountain of a to do list and you can't think about anything but the chocolate left over from Christmas and you might just go insane.

You need to create a gap in your stream of thinking and break out of the overwhelm. It could be as simple as stopping to take some breaths and examining how the stress feels in your body for a couple of minutes.

Emergency tactics (some other things that work for me)

1. Change of scenery - get out of the house for a march around the block. Breathe deep with big sighs out.

2. Call "time out". Like an overwhelmed toddler we sometimes just need a bit of time out from sensory overload… lie down with your eyes closed and just breathe, focussing on an area of the body; this can be surprisingly powerful.

3. Pick a soothing guided meditation on the Insight Timer app (free). Sarah Blondin has a beautiful voice and compassionate words. Tara Brach will guide you through a RAIN meditation where you can recognise and allow your feelings, bringing curiosity to your experience. You can lie down for these, you don't have to get all lotus pose and serene.

4. Phone a friend and rant about everything and everyone.

5. Get in a bath - you can't do any damage there so it helps to take away any addictive wrangling in your mind.

6. Have a good cry. If we're trying to break a destructive habit we need to remember that this habit has been diverting us from feeling difficult emotions for many years… it's better to feel into the emotion than to divert to some other distraction.

Once you've created a gap in your thoughts you can ask yourself what it is you really need: could you need some rest or some recognition or understanding a friend.

Alternatively if our issue is more about making ourselves do something that we don't want to do in that moment, like head to a yoga class or go for a run then we need to take the thinking mind out of it… it will come up with the most compelling reasons to convince us not to do the thing we've committed to. It takes time to build established habits and it will be hard at first. Some ways to inspire action:

• Take one step at a time in the getting ready, don't think about the thing you're fearing / avoiding, just one foot in front of the other

• Think about how you'll feel when you've completed. I'd bet you've never regretted going to a yoga class or going out for that run once it's done.

• Repeat your affirmations as you just get on with it, or use another favourite mantra of mine "JFDI"! (ahem, just do it)

Know that pushing through the harder times is where the magic lies. This is what builds strong habits and resilience. These are the moments of true deep transformation, where you find a new way of being, the second time will be easier, the 10th time you won't even think about, you are truly changing your life! What you learn here will be big. Make time to celebrate your wins knowing that you've just made your life much easier in the long run.

Be curious to failure

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” – Maya Angelou

Despite best intentions there might be times where you just don't manage to stay on course. Our inner perfectionist might be inclined to chuck the toys out the pram, say "what the hell" and quit altogether. You need to be unstoppable with your intention, and this is the true beauty of intention over resolution. Take the example:

Resolution: "I commit to dry January, I'm not going to touch a single drop".

Intention: "I am fit and healthy and free from addiction".

With the first option if we have one drink we've failed, we're "off the wagon", "just like last year", "I give up trying", "I'm such a failure".

The second is an intention that can be our guiding light regardless of short term hurdles, our north star regardless of us having a break. We can dive right back in and take the next right action in alignment with our intention rather than throwing our commitments under the bus, alongside our self respect.

Take the bold step of looking at what happened. If there was a reason strong enough to make you break your commitment to yourself this is an important bit of information for you to be curious about. The Internal Family Systems model of therapy identifies the different "parts" of us. As well as our authentic self we have parts that are wounded (our inner child) and parts that are protecting the wound; sometimes this "protection" can appear to be "negative" behaviour, but if we can understand that our parts are only ever trying to operate in our best interest we can be more compassionate about our motives, and work to find alternative coping strategies.

Step 5: Celebrate your actions

Step 5: Celebrate actions not outcomes

Let go of outcome

Try to celebrate your following through on your plan rather than focussing on achievement of some goal or endpoint. Say your intention is to get fit and healthy and you're hoping to lose weight. It's hard not to have a target weight in mind and build a vision of your success based on achieving that goal, and you might have a timescale in mind. You have an awesome week of smashing your daily actions, you're feeling good, you hop on the scale and you're up a pound (******* scale!), we've all been there. If you're solely focussed on your goal you could say "this isn't working I may as well plant my face in that cake". But if you're celebrating taking actions that are in alignment with your goals you might well swear at the scale, but you can still be proud of your achievements and be open to acknowledging that there could be some random factor influencing your weigh in that day (water weight, hormones, muscle, useless scales).

Review and replan weekly and adjust as necessary, being realistic about what you can achieve and always planning for upcoming challenges.

Summary

Living with intention might sound like a lot of effort, but in my opinion it leads to a happier and more exhilarating and fulfilled life.

Life isn't always easy... choose your hard!

Summary

But what's this got to do with yoga?

We often set an intention at the beginning of our yoga practice and check in as we go through, an intention such as "I am present", "I am in connection with my body" etc., which helps to maintain our intention and maximise the value of our regular practice.

Life on the mat is said to mirror life off the mat. We can note the fears and thought patterns and limiting beliefs that crop up, often noting with humour that these are the same limiting thoughts and beliefs that crop up in our daily lives. With more practice we get better at being mindful both on and off the mat and we can learn to establish more compassionate thoughts and beliefs through intention setting and affirmations, helping us to be more resilient and more content.

And yoga isn't just the fancy shapes we throw on the mat. It is a lifestyle that includes discipline (tapas) and self study (svadhyaya).

What do you think?

This is my first blog post EVER. I'm aware it's lengthy, and could be more visual, so thank you for reading!

Is there anything I've missed or do you disagree? Please leave a comment :).

If there's enough demand for it I'll plan in an an intention setting workshop. Message me if you'd be interested.