Because each of us is in the middle of a story we don’t know the ending to. We all have farther to go.
Why “Farther to Go”?
Intentions: Mistakes Were Made
Creating an intention seems like something that should be pretty straightforward. So why isn’t it? There are three common mistakes almost all of us have made when we’ve set out to do something.
Mistake #1
The clue to Mistake #1 appears in the first sentence of this post: the word should. We have many concepts about the way things should be, but even more about how we should be and what we should be able to do. In the context of creating intentions, the word should needs to be banished. It isn’t helpful, and it sets us up to have unrealistic expectations. Why start out by pitting your actual self against an idealized self who can easily do whatever it is you’re currently struggling with? That makes absolutely no sense, yet we do it all the time.
If you have created an intention to do something because you think you should do it or you should be able to do it, let it go. You’re not going to be able to commit to something you should do, and you’re probably not willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish it since you think you should already be doing it. The fact that you aren’t doing it means you’re just not trying or you’re lazy or incapable or have no will power. You’ve prejudged yourself as somehow lacking, so you’ve lost before you’ve even begun.
Mistake #2
Sometimes there are entire areas of our lives we want to revamp, so we create an intention to do just that. No baby steps for us; we’re going for the gold! But trying to tackle too much all at once is another recipe for failure because the chance of succeeding is miniscule at best. When we take baby steps we have a much better chance of accomplishing what we set out to do. Then we can build on our success. When we aim to do it all at once and miss the mark, we end up with nothing but a reinforced sense of ineffectiveness or inadequacy.
Another thing to remember is that when you try to do many things at the same time, you’re giving yourself many opportunities to fail. If you want to develop a habit that involves doing something multiple times during the day, start out by creating an intention to do it once or twice a day—or even every other day. Once you’ve succeeded with that, you can expand on it. This is the kind of mistake we often make when starting an exercise program. Add Mistake #1 to the mix—the belief that you should be exercising for a certain number of minutes every day—and you might as well just pick up the remote and head for the couch.
Mistake #3
The third mistake we make when creating an intention is that we are vague rather than specific. Maybe we aren’t consciously trying to give ourselves wiggle room, but that’s what vagueness does to intentions: it paves the way for us to wiggle right out of them. There are a lot of reasons we’re vague. Maybe we think just creating the intention should be sufficient. (Is there a voice in your head that says if you really want to do something, you’ll do it? Tell it to shut up.) Or our schedule is too variable for us to be specific. Or we want to maintain our flexibility. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
The reason for being specific when creating an intention is that vagueness simply doesn’t work so creating a vague intention is a waste of time. If you want to do something twice a week, decide on the days of the week and the time of day you will do it. If your schedule varies, make appointments with yourself and write them on your calendar or in your planner. Treat your appointments with yourself the same way you would treat an appointment with someone else. Give yourself a little respect. If you know what result you want, think through the steps you’ll need to take to achieve it. Make the steps your intention and the result will follow.
Creating an intention really is pretty straightforward, but only if we know what works and what doesn’t work.
Attention Is Essential
Intention is a great catalyst. It gives us something to aim at, a focus, a goal. But after creating an intention to do something, we also need to pay attention to what happens—to what we do, what we think, and what we feel. Paying attention helps us override the brain’s autopilot so we don’t simply fall back into familiar patterns and habits.
Attention is the same as awareness or mindfulness. Since much of what we do is done automatically, we tend not to be very mindful of our own thoughts, feelings, words, and behavior, let alone the effect we might be having on other people. We aren’t fully present most of the time.
There are various kinds of mindfulness practices, including mindfulness meditation. Meditation has many great benefits and is an excellent habit to develop and maintain for general health and well-being. But it isn’t the only way to be mindful, aware, or attentive. In terms of following through with an intention, a practice or a tool that helps us focus on the behavior we’re trying to generate may be more useful. Here are three suggestions:
Self-Awareness Pie Chart
Draw a circle a couple of inches in diameter and divide it into three slices that represent how much of your attention in that moment is on your feelings (F), your thoughts (T), and your body (B). Put the letter designations inside the appropriate pie slices. Then write your answers to these questions:
- How do I feel emotionally?
- What am I thinking about?
- How do I feel physically?
You can write as much or as little as you like. If you use this exercise to help with an intention, the best time to do it is when you have done—or not done—what you intended to do.
Theme Word or Phrase
Come up with a word or phrase that reminds you of what you’re trying to achieve. Write it on Post-its or index cards and put them where you’re most likely to see them. You don’t have to limit yourself to a word or phrase. You can come up with a theme song, an image, a string around your finger, or anything else that focuses your attention.
Questions
Create two or three questions you can ask yourself each day, such as:
- What is my intention?
- Why do I want to do [whatever it is]?
- Am I committed to doing [whatever it is] today?
You can ask and answer the questions on paper, in your head, or you can invite a friend to ask them.
It doesn’t really matter what you decide to do, as long as you do something to keep your attention focused on your intention. It takes many repetitions for your brain’s autopilot to get the message.
Keep Calm?
Thanks to www.womenworking.com. I couldn’t agree more!
What Gets in the Way
What keeps us from achieving the things we want or even set out to achieve? Science writer David DiSalvo (What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite) seems to like why questions—which I’m on record as opposing. He wrote an article for Forbes titled “The 10 Reasons Why We Fail,” which he describes as reflections on falling short—more precisely, why we fail despite ourselves.
Two of his reasons—the first and last, as it happens—really resonate for me based on my own experience and the experiences of friends and acquaintances.
You Don’t Believe You Can Do It
Luke: I can’t believe it.
Yoda: That is why you fail.The crucial part of Yoda’s dialogue with Luke is “believe.” The human brain is a powerful problem-solving and prediction making machine, and it operates via a multitude of feedback loops. What matters most in the feedback loop dynamic is input—what goes into the loop that begins the analysis-evaluation-action process, which ultimately results in an outcome. Here’s the kicker: if your input shuttle for achieving a goal lacks the critical, emotionally relevant component of belief, then the feedback loop is drained of octane from the start. Another way to say that is—why would you expect a convincingly successful outcome when you haven’t convinced yourself that it’s possible?
Believing you can do something is a precursor to intentionally changing or initiating a habit. If you start out believing you can’t do it, you will more than likely fulfill that prophecy.
You’re Confused about What to Do
Of all of these 10 ideas, this one is to me the most difficult because it plagues me almost constantly. Gearing up the cerebral feedback loop for achievement is one thing, but without a sense of focus and direction, all of that energy isn’t going to yield very much in the end. My experience has been that sometimes you have to let the energy flow for a while without too firm a sense of direction and see if focus emerges organically. Once it does, you can then nurture it into a more structured method for getting where you want to go.
Confusion abounds, especially when people think they ought to know what to do and where to go, but don’t. There are several ways to prime the pump to gain some clarity about what to do next. Often, however, we and our brains are so frantically busy going in whatever direction we’re going that we can’t slow down enough to realize we don’t actually know what the heck we’re doing.