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!