Living a Life with Intention

We all go through times of dullness and disinterest. Whether it’s in our spiritual life, our health, how we take care of ourselves, our friendships, or even in our work.

There are times where we are on cruise control; living each day and just doing things to get us by.

Yes we may be mostly healthy, spiritual, a good friend, or a good worker, but sometimes being good for a long time isn’t actually a good thing. It’s important to stop and ask ourselves, “What are we doing to be great at all of these things?”

It all comes down to intention. When we’re on cruise control, we lack intention. Our hearts aren’t fully in it and we wonder why we then feel bored or disinterested in life. This is most likely because in an overstimulated world, our motivation and energy come from outside of us. We rely on outside motivation, inspiration, and energy to get us through our days and in the end we don’t really move forward in life. The reason why this is tricky is because outside energy almost mimics the feelings of producing energy ourselves, but instead we are subject to what the outside world provides for us. We then become stagnant and this cycle is repeated over and over again.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Having outside inspiration is great for getting started and increasing your knowledge on certain subjects. But after that initial energy or knowledge, what are you going to do with it?

What if we produced that electrifying, motivating energy within ourselves? Then we would have the ability not only to get through our days, but also to go above and beyond and actually move the needle in our lives.

You might be asking, “How do we do this?”

It starts with intention and discipline. We are not always going to wake up and jump out of bed with the energy we need to take on each and every day.

We must understand that we are human. Being human means having emotions and sometimes we can let our emotions and our thoughts get the best of us. It’s on these down or low energy days that we use intention and discipline. Instead of looking outside of us to feed ourselves the motivation to do well, we must be disciplined about doing the things we know produces energy inside of us and doing those things with intention.

Intention is what brings what we’re disciplined about to life. We can workout, pray, eat well, socialize with friends, and work all we want. But without intention behind these actions, we can easily move through the motions without really getting anywhere. Intentions allow us to make the most of our time and every opportunity. When we’re with a friend, isn’t it better to have deep conversations, listen, and connect in ways to make the two of you closer instead of gossiping or having the same old boring conversations? This is also the same for working out. When you workout, are you lazily going through the movements simply to check it off the list? Or are you being intentional about your workouts and making the most of your time in the gym? Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t have low impact days but the difference is if you are doing it with intention or not. With intention, you get the results you desire; whether you’re simply stretching or you are having a super pumped workout. With intention, we are focused, we are taking action and doing the things we know will move the needle on our goals in the limited amount of time we have. Having a sense of urgency, being intentional, and making the most of our time is what makes us better in the long run.

That is how we produce the energy ourselves. Discipline alone can get us far, but with intention we can go farther. We must not become complacent in this life, even if compared to others we may be doing good things. We must always be challenging ourselves because that is what is going to produce the results we are looking for.

How are you being intentional?