Clarity of Your Intentions Produces Effective Action

The importance of intention…

All too often, we act spontaneously in the moment without giving much thought to the consequences of our actions. Without possessing a clear intention and well-thought-out plan of action, we are far more likely to do things that we may later regret, making unwise decisions. The errors in judgment that tend to accompany thoughtless actions brings about unforeseen reactions from others that can cause upsetting consequences.

By learning to approach all new activities with intention, you will be equipped with a valuable tool that can serve your success much like a tennis player who plans exactly where she intends to place her next serve. Any tennis player knows, when such intention is lacking, the shot is far more likely to land out of bounds.

When you develop clarity concerning what you are committed to accomplishing in your life, this will serve as a building block to your Personal Power. You are committed to creating the life you desire. Without this firm grasp regarding what is most important and worth sacrificing for, most will tend to act according to convenience. You can develop the habit of deciding moment by moment…

what is most important to you…
what decisions honors your values…
what actions align with your goals and vision for your life.

Moment by moment, we all can see that we have the option of either honoring our values and making wise choices that align with who we have decided to be or we can take the easy way out without concern for the consequences of lazy choices.

Picture yourself walking along a forest path. Suddenly, you come to a fork in the road. The left side path represents taking the easy way out. This could mean…

opting to hang out with the cool but undesirable crowd…
party with friends rather than do your homework…
experiment with drugs instead of saying no to them…
or giving into peer pressure rather than having the courage to do what’s right.

And then there is the path to the right…your inner guidance.

Listen to, and trust your intuition….your gut instinct — it’s usually your first thought or reaction. When you gain the confidence to know that the answers to your problems lie within you and that your intuition is never wrong, you will trust that as you develop the ability to listen to your wise inner voice, you will never be without the wise counsel that you seek. Those who learn to distinguish between the wise voices of their intuition and the negative self-talker (I call this our “inner-roommate”, as it is always with us and keeps showing up) that keeps them small, stuck, fearful and suffering will possess a great ally to bolster their self-esteem and belief in their ability to overcome any challenge.

Intuition is sourced in our higher selves. It is the voice of love and wisdom.

On the other hand, our negative self-talker (aka “inner-roommate”) is typically sourced in fear. It is based on the assumption that we are not smart or good enough to know how to overcome our challenges. It is the by-product of lacking self-esteem. Our negative self-talker operates in one of two ways…

1. It’s job is to protect us from harm by having us avoid risk, playing small, and protect ourselves from what we see as a dangerous world. It warns us to be careful, because it is telling us that we are not up to overcoming whatever challenge presents itself to us.
2. Alternatively, coming from the assumption that we are defective, it can challenge us to prove our worth. This “I’ll show you” approach has us strive for recognition and accomplishments to disprove that nagging voice that we are not enough. Unfortunately, no matter what we do, how much we accomplish, how worthy we seek to prove ourselves to be, we can never satisfy that nagging doubt that seeks to invalidate our value and worth and we continually find additional evidence that we are not good enough.

You can learn to recognize the negative self-talker when it appears, manage it effectively, and create new empowering interpretations that support excellence, happiness and Personal Power. [Whenever mine shows up, I just say “thank you for your opinion, but I am good!”] 

When you exercise the new ‘muscle’ of making decisions that require wisdom and courage, especially when they are inconvenient to make, you will be developing the habit of acting in alignment with your intuition and doing the right thing.

The more you become accustomed to making decisions that align with your values, the easier future choices will become. When you take the time to listen to your gut knowing what is the right decision to make in every situation, (with repetition) this will strengthen your self-confidence and you will learn to trust your intuition. You will get really good at being aware of the consequences of making poor choices, which will enable your ability to develop a sense of moral goodness that will result in elevating your self-esteem.

And, that feels REALLY good!