Grit By Name and By Nature

Archives for February 2020

Gritention Setting: The Program

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HOORAY you did it! You have an intention, so we can FINALLY get started on this journey together!!

Before I hand over your 8-week intention setting toolkit, here’s how the program works:

It’s an eight-week program focused on ONE intention. The program, however, will be broken up into four 2-week periods, during which we will focus on applying your intention. This means that at the end of the program, you will have up to four different applications of your intention incorporated into your week.

It’s important to start with small bites, one at a time, until you get to the end of the 8 weeks and you’ve eaten the whole damn slice of avocado toast AMIRITE.

PLEASE refrain from trying to implement 101 things at once. You’ll crash and burn. Take this from someone who loves n adores n believes in you: you WILL crash and burn. It may not happen right away, but it will happen.

So here’s how it goes:

At the beginning of each 2-week period, you will choose a method of implementing your intuition that averages out to NO MORE THAN 15-MINUTES A DAY.

Did you hear me?

No more than 15-minutes/day.

Should I say it again?

NO MORE THAN 15-MINUTES PER DAY, PERIOD.

That means that at the end of the 8 weeks, your total time commitment will be NO MORE than 1 hr/day (4 intentions, MAX 15 MINS EACH). In fact it will probably be less!

Now let’s say your intention is: I nourish myself with movement and food that make me feel vibrant, and your first method of implementation is taking a 15-minute walk every other day. If you get out on your walk, and it’s a beautiful day, tunes are bumpin, and you’re really feelin yourself okayyyyyyyy💁🏽‍♀️ then by all means, keep walking sista/mista/inbetwista! BUT, don’t change all future commitments to match your longer walk.

Program Overview

Big picture, the program looks something like this (don’t worry, your toolkit will walk you through this all step by step):

  • Before you start: Fill out intention, complete your first 2-week calendar.
  • Week 1-2: Implement Intention Application #1
  • Week 3-4: Continue Intention Application #1, implement Intention Application #2
  • Week 5-6: Continue Intention Application #1 & #2, implement Intention Application #3
  • Week 7-8: Continue Intention Application #1 & #2 & #3, implement Intention Application #4

Resist the urge to commit to all four of your intention implementations at the beginning of week one. It’s a great idea to brainstorm and jot down some options, but you may find that as you progress through the weeks, your intention changes slightly (or entirely). It’s key to stay flexible so that your intention continues to serve you. We will do a quick reflection at the end of each two-week period to check in on our intention and its applications.

The Gritention Setting Toolkit

Now to keep you organized, I’m providing a PDF toolkit to help you track, document, and reflect this journey. The toolkit is comprised of the following items:

  • Intention Statement Sheet
  • Calendar Breakdown
  • Your key to success: 3-MISP
INTENTION STATEMENT

First things first: you need to write down your intention and put it somewhere where you see it every day. Bathroom mirror, bedside table, work computer, phone background, husband’s forehead , I don’t care. I have provided a beautiful print out for you if you ❤ pretty things. But a post-it note works gr8 too. Because I love you all and know that the kids don’t use “hard copies” these days, I have also provided an image optimized for an Apple screen on which you can type your intentions using markups. If you don’t have an iPhone, I respect but do not understand you; you’re just going to have to figure that one out on your own😘

CALENDAR BREAKDOWN

The second PDF is a calendar breakdown of your journey. It contains:

  • An 8-week overview so you can cross off days as you progress (we all love doing that, don’t we?😊)
  • Separate, more detailed calendars for each 2-week period. The PDF guides you through each day and is v straightforward to fill out.
YOUR KEY TO SUCCESS: THE 3-MISP

Now for the MOST important part: every day, we are going to start w/ a 3–Minute Intention Setting Practice (or as I like to call it, 3-MISP). I promise you, it will take no more than 3 (three) minutes, and it will guarantee that every single day will be a success, no matter what happens throughout the rest of the day.

So we will begin each day the same way.

Step 1: Take a deep (DEEP) breath in. Aim for at least 6 counts as you inhale. Pause at the top of your breath, and breath your intention out, fully. You don’t need to actually say it out loud, but think it, and think it HARD. Really push your intention out into the world with your breath. Breath ALL that stale air out of your lungs. Witth force💪 

Step 2: Check in on your calendar and what you have scheduled for the day.

Step 3: Take a hot second to visualize how you will implement your intention today. Visualize implementing your intention in first person. While this will take mere seconds, performing this visualization will have an extremely powerful impact. If you don’t believe me, check out these studies, they’re wild.

And that’s it! Less than three minutes and you’ve already succeeded for the day 😊 Anything beyond these three minutes are just bonus.

SO ARE WE READY TO GET STARTED OR WHAT?! 😊 😊 😊

Get your Toolkit here:

Your Intention Statement (remember, a post-it note works too 😊)

The Gritention-Setting Calendar

How to Choose an Intention

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Look, deep down, I think you already know what your intentions are/should be for these 8 weeks or you wouldn’t have clicked on this program in the first place. And if you already have one, PLEASE by all means, skip this whole page and dive right into the program.

But if intention setting is new to you, it can be a bit confusing and overwhelming. Here are some steps to help you set your own, individualized intention:

STEP ONE

If you’ve had the same goal for a long time, try to dig down to the WHY of that goal and use that as the basis of your intention.

i.e., let’s say you have a goal of “I want to lose 10 lbs” (you all know I have a visceral reaction to weight loss goals BUT I’m also a realist && I know it’s one of the most common ones out there).

But do you really just want to lose 10lbs for the sake of losing 10lbs? Probably not. REALLY think about why you want to lose 10lbs. Are you trying to increase confidence? Feel more vibrant? Be accepted by others? Instead of setting that weight loss goal, you can set an intention that looks something like:

  • I am confident.
  • I have meaningful connections with others.
  • I nourish myself with movement and food that make me feel vibrant.
  • I show up with energy for the world.
  • I am open to new opportunities and relationships.
STEP TWO

Another thing that can be helpful in intention setting is picturing your truest self. I KNOW that you may think I’m getting a little “woo woo” here, but bear with me. When I hit rock bottom with my eating disorder, I took out a box of LITERAL crayons and drew an image of who I envisioned my truest self to be. And let me tell ya, she wasn’t on a diet nor was she concerned about her pant-size. I still have it, I still revisit it, and no one, not even C, has seen it.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to draw a picture or locate a box of crayons. Instead, just grab a sheet of scrap paper or open Notes on your phone (I think that’s what the youths do these days?) and start jotting down the first words that come to mind. What do these words say about your truest self? Are you peaceful? Connecting with others? Experiencing nature? Creating something? Just LOOK at all that beautiful intention potential:

  • I am creative and share this with the world.
  • I am courageous.
  • I am at peace with myself and others.
  • I show acts of kindness and bring joy to the lives of others.
  • My mind is open to the world.
  • I take care of myself so I can show up for others.
STEP THREE

And finally, if you’re sitting there thinking “wtf Grit you’ve completely lost me”, well, then let’s stick to the most basic of basics. Just think about your values. What are the things that matter the most to you? Intentions can be incredibly simple:

  • I am loyal.
  • I am kind.
  • I am honest.
  • I show up for others.
  • I care for the environment.
  • I am impactful.
  • I work hard.

So you see, your intention can be as broad or as narrow as you like. Unlike goals, intentions are limitless. And don’t stress too much about it, because we will be revisiting our intentions throughout this program. Setting your first intention is only the beginning of a beautiful journey 😊

As always, if you’re really struggling with this, don’t hesitate to slide into my DMs (or shoot me an email) and we can come up with an intention together.

So let’s get into this program, shall we? 😊

What is an Intention?

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According to the world wide interweb, an intention is: “a thing intended; an aim or plan.”

Lolz SUPER HELPFUL RIGHT.

So, what exactly is an intention?

An intention is a guiding statement for how you want to show up in the world. Intention setting is quite different than goal setting, in that it isn’t comprised of a singular tangible task, but instead, a desire expressed by the head and the heart.

The beautiful thing about intention setting is that you lead with the “why”, not the “what”. When you’re guided by an intention, as opposed to a goal, you can be more compassionate with yourself and authentic to your values and beliefs. Let me give you an example:

Say that you set a goal of running three times a week for 8 weeks.

Week 1-3 go great! You run three times each week and feel strong.

But then Week 4 hits, and you notice a pain in your left foot. You run once and it gets worse. But you have a goal of three runs per week, so you lace up anyway and run yourself *BAM* right into a stress fracture.

So, you take a few weeks off before getting the official thumbs up to run again. But it’s cloudy, you’re feeling a bit tired, and they just released Season 2 of Sex Education on Netflix. You don’t really like running and don’t feel like running just for the sake of running. You’ll run tomorrow. Or the next day. Or maybe you’ll never run again for the rest of your life. I mean, you’ve already missed WEEKS so isn’t this goal already an epic failure anyway?

Now let’s say that instead of setting a goal of running three times a week, you set an intention: “I move my body to encourage strength and health”. Running three times a week can absolutely foster and support this intention, but you’re still supporting the intention if you find yourself with a pain in your foot and choose to rest, or if you choose a different form of movement. In this way, setting an intention helps you keeping moving forward in a variety of ways—ways that allow yourself grace—instead of feeling as though you’ve failed on a path to a goal.

Make sense?

Now look, I’m a chronic achiever and 100% get off on setting and achieving goals. If you’ve navigated to my page, you probably relate to that in some way, shape, or form. While goal-setting definitely has a time and a place, it has gotten me into some real trouble in the past. Cue insane diets, over exercise, work burnout, broken bones, torn ligaments, loss of a social life, etc. etc.

Intention setting really changed my life. Nobody is meaner to me than me, and I KNOW you feel me here. Unlike goal setting, where I can easily set myself up for loads of self-shaming and negative self-talk, intention setting allows me to feel a sense of accomplishment, while leaving room for little surprises that help me generate new energy in ways I never expected.

So now we are officially ready to get started! First things first, you need to identify your intention for these 8 weeks! If you need help with that, ya girls got your back:

How do I pick an intention that’s right for me?

I have my intention, bring on the program!