Three Easy Steps to Setting Your Intentions in Motion!

Photo Credit: Weekly Intentions by Keith Renninson

Do You Use Intention in Setting Weekly Goals?

Kristin Armstrong, a former professional road bicycle racer, and three-time Olympic gold medalist said of intention, “We either live with intention or exist by default.”  I couldn’t agree more because default is the road heavily traveled to mediocrity.

Over time in my life, I’ve learned how holding a serious intention about a health/fitness, a spiritual or business goal was more often achieved when I focused on it.  I’m like a lot of people, I have my “to do” list that I update each week.  It is my intention to complete that list in the time frame given.

As I viewed the process it became clear that the mere fact that I believed I would finish each task on the list gave me confidence in my ability to have intentions that I was able to accomplish.  When we believe in something it adds more power and energy to our confidence.  This all boiled down to three power steps over time:

Power Tip #1. If possible, do this during quiet time when you can reflect on your intentions for the week and the future, Sunday evening works best.  I start with a yellow legal pad with the title across the top saying “My Intentions for the Week”, then I’d draw a vertical line down the middle of the page and a horizontal line across the page also in the middle, giving me four equal quadrants to fill-in with tasks.   I titled the top of each quadrant with something relevant like speaking, writing, website, and club duties.  Whatever is important in your life that you want to schedule things to do. 

Power Tip #2.  I would then list the things that I intended to work on or complete during the week.   Prioritize them with the most difficult first and the easiest last. As the week goes along, I often add new items that would arise hoping that I’d get to them by week’s end as well.   My tenacity pushed me to complete as much as I could, not wanting to carry anything over if I could help it.

Power Tip #3. I’d cross each item off with a red pen when they were completed giving me a sense of satisfaction as the week went by seeing what I’d finished.  Celebrating the small successes is always important to a sense of purpose.  Anything that was left got bumped to Sunday evening when I’d start the process over again.

It’s a quick and simple non-tech-based system that keeps me on track and moving forward with my intentions.  I hope this helps you to set some intentions, big or small, and follow through on them!

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Good luck!

Keith......