The Step-by- Step Guide to Keeping Your Intentions - This Time For Real

Photo Cred: @pawelskor

Insanely Powerful Tools to Set Intentions with Clarity, Focus and Insight: The Step-by- Step Guide to Keeping Your Intentions - This Time For Real

A common question that I’m asked regularly is, “How can I stay focused on my true heart’s desire? Why am I allowing myself to take actions that don’t support my goals?”

I understand. Setting goals and creating dreams is the easy part. The challenging part comes in staying committed to those dreams for the long-haul.

Staying focused on the heart’s desire can be challenging for some people. Sometimes they find themselves struggling to keep their focus on their intentions. They may have clarity, knowing what they want, but they distract themselves with other things that use up their time and energy.

They may make lists, posts their intentions in a place where they see them frequently, but

as the days go on, they forget about their intentions and engage in behaviors that do not support of them.

Sound familiar?

It’s incredibly common to start out with your list of intentions and slowly lose your steam or focus. You may start off with a bang and then reach a plateau or just not know how to continue on.

How can we break out of this pattern?

Doing a bit of digging!

I find that a good deal of the time, an underlying negative or faulty belief system is the culprit. Those negative thoughts and beliefs indeed drive our actions. So, the first place to start digging is under the surface to your thoughts.

The Parable Of The Two Wolves

I am reminded of the parable of two wolves. A grandfather tells his grandson that there are two wolves that live inside each of us that are always fighting each other. One of them is a good wolf which represents love, peace, joy, kindness, courage, empathy and truth. The other is a bad wolf which represents, fear, anger, hatred, guilt, arrogance, greed and envy.

The grandson asks, “Which wolf wins?”

The grandfather simply replies, “The one you feed”.

This parable is a strong reminder of the power of our thoughts and intentions. Being disciplined with our thoughts and intentions means giving energy to them.

Over to you. What thoughts and intentions are you feeding? Which are you starving?

Maintaining Focus On Your Intentions

Setting intentions is usually the easy part. Keeping your focus on the habits necessary to make the change may be harder. For example, changing patterns of self-sabotage can seem like a grueling task, especially if you’ve been sabotaging for years and years. In the brain, our neural pathways can become deep super highways for behaviors that don’t serve us and yet we are comforted driving down these familiar roads.

The great news is I have a tried and true method that will help you to let go of self-sabotaging habits and allow you to focus on your intentions with clarity and discipline.

Steps To Setting Powerful, Energy Charged Intentions

1. Surrender – Commit to letting go of anything that is blocking you from living to your fullest potential. Being willing to surrender any beliefs that are blocking you is your first step to creating powerful, energy charged intentions.

2. Discover your blocking belief – We tend to have beliefs hiding under the surface that can affect us and block us from our full potential. This exercise helps us do a little digging and see what beliefs are blocking us from living our best life. Some examples of beliefs that I hear often are:

• I don’t have time

• It’s the way I was raised

• I am not worthy

• I am not creative

• Nothing good ever happens to me

• I am not charismatic

• I am dragging my past and family history around with me

• I am a procrastinator

• I don’t have money

Sit in a comfortable spot, light a candle, close your eyes and set an intention to write down any beliefs that are blocking you. Then, open your eyes, set a timer for 10 minutes, and answer the question, “What beliefs are blocking me?”

Let the writing flow out of you. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar; just write. Take stock of what you’ve written. Are some beliefs more charged than others? Write down a benefit for each belief.

For example, if you wrote down, “I don’t have time”, it could be that underneath that belief is the feeling that if I never have time then I’m avoiding failure. Then, I don’t ever have to worry about not succeeding because I have my tried and true excuse.

I have no time = no failure = no risk.

3. Discover What You Truly Want

Meditation Exercise

Set a timer for 5 minutes. Close your eyes, inhale through your nose, inflate your belly, exhale through your nose, contract your belly. Imagine a deep feeling of contentedness coming over your body. Feel yourself relax into this deep place of peace and ease. Imagine your heart is filled with joy and light. Feel yourself come into a state of stillness, the place where our mind is free from clutter. It is from this place of centered focus that we can then move to step 4.

4. Journal Writing

Start a journal and begin writing down your strongest intentions. Just let your spirit start writing, not worrying about the why’s or how’s. Journal writing can be a powerful tool to get that momentum going.

5. Perform A Fire Ceremony

Now that you have your intentions set clearly, do a fire ritual to work with any attachment to outcome you may have. Burn your intentions, releasing/surrendering any attachment to the outcome. We must release our attachment to these intentions for them to flourish. Let the universe and its powerful energy do the rest. When we release our intentions into the fire, we are tapping into a powerful transformer of energy.

6. Visualize

Create a clear picture of what you desire. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between what is real and what is imagined. By simply imagining doing something, you have the ability to reshape your brain circuitry. This has been effectively used to help athletes achieve better results for years.

Come up with a visual cue for your intentions. An example might be if my intention is to live in abundance, I would see myself in a spot in nature surrounded by people that I love. Go there multiple times in the day. If my intention is to run every day, I would see myself running in my favorite spot in nature, really soaking in the sounds, the sights and the feel of the place. I may even be able to smell the leaves under my feet and feel the runner’s high that I get.

Whatever your visual is, steep yourself in it. Bring in all your senses - see it, feel it, hear it.

If you’re feeling challenged setting your intentions click here to get to the front of the line for the next workshop.