I first started writing, reciting and visualizing my intentions when the economy hit the skids. Our family company was deep in the thick of the mess and I felt my world start crumbling down. Everything seems to be evaporating before my eyes, and my mind was churning over the negative possibilities.
At that same time I was listening to an interview of Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and Success Principles. He (and most successful people) gets up every morning and visualizes his intentions. Intentions are intimately connected to the law of attraction: when we have sincere, passionate intentions, the universe goes to work. Something really resonated in me that day and my intention writing began.
When you think about it, we would never go on a long journey without planning ahead. So many of us, however, forget life is a journey that deserves the same level of thoughtfulness. Often, we feel the same feelings, are stumped by the same problems, and are reliving the same patterns over and over again. We see point B but don’t know how to get there. The great thing is, we don’t have to know how to get there yet. We just have to set our intentions.
Intentions are perfect when you know you want to change something, but you don’t know how or don’t have control. Intentions shift thoughts and beliefs, and when that happens, anything is possible.
The key to writing good intentions are:
- Keep them short and easy to repeat. Intentions need flow off your tongue easily where you can recite it over and over to yourself. If you keep stumbling over words, change it.
- Keep them positive. Rather than say, “I don’t yell at my kids” say “I treat my children with kindness” or “I laugh and have fun with my kids.” Our minds tend to pick up on the negative words (like “yell”) which defeats the purpose.
- Keep them simple. Some people have very specific intentions, like “I exercise 5 times a week.” Others have very broad intentions, like “I am healthy and full of energy.” Either way, keep it simple. I prefer to keep my intentions broader and less specific. I don’t want to limit how the Divine Universe may want to help fulfill my desires. There may be a bigger, better plan that I do not see. So, when my son was struggling in school, I chose to say “My son thrives in school” rather than “My son gets good grades.” The subtle difference is that I didn’t decide that thriving HAD to mean good grades. I left it open to many possibilities.
Once you have written a handful of intentions, you need to broadcast them. Pick a time every day (the morning before the kids get out of bed is best for me) and recite each affirmation over and over while visualizing what that feels and looks like. For example, during my panic stage when I mentally repeated my intention that “I have more than enough money,” I visualized what I would like to do with my money, like going on family trips together. Not only did I visualize what it looked like, I tapped into what it felt like. At first this is hard and feels contrived, but as you do it more and more, the feelings and images come very easily.
Each intention will only take a minute or two to visualize until you feel like moving onto the next one, so the entire process will take less than ten minutes a day. As your intentions are imprinted and feel finished, you can drop them and add new ones. My new intentions are:
- I am open to big changes
- I am a kind and compassionte mother
- Answers and ideas come easily to me
- I inspire people
I hope this inspired you to plan for the next step in your life! If you ask the top leaders, entrepreneurs and athletes in the world, most will tell you they are doing some form of intention writing and visualization. And that’s because it works, plain and simple.
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Dalai Lina 