Written by: Anne Bolender

We have a tendency to use intentions as a type of goal, as something concrete that we need to achieve or some action that needs to be completed – or at least I used to. I would often “set” intentions like: “My intention is to hike around the Guelph Lake today.” or “My intention today is to eat healthy.” or “My intention is to have fun.” Hiking, eating healthy, having fun – not easy actions to achieve on a daily basis by simply setting a goal or an intention!

While this type of intention or goal is fairly quick and easy to set, they are not very powerful. For me, when I used to set this type of intention, I tended to become distracted somewhere between setting the intention and actually fulfilling it. Then when I didn’t fulfill the intention or complete the goal, I would become frustrated with myself. I would become disillusioned, disheartened, negative and would often abandon the lifestyle change I was trying to accomplish. If I didn’t achieve my goal of eating only healthy food today or completing a specific physical activity, I would be less likely to try again the next day until eventually I gave up completely. Sound familiar?

Recently I discovered a slightly different way to set more powerful intentions and actually achieve awesome goals.

When I align my intention with one of my personal core values and then align that with a specific goal, I become a very powerful manifester.

Let me re-work that first intention I set above to show you how this works:

Assuming that one of my core values is “Wellness” and I define wellness, in part, as being physically active and enjoying life. One of my daily powerful intentions that is aligned to this core value becomes “to enjoy being physically active”. I set my wellness goal for today as “to hike around the Guelph Lake”.

So far so good. My intention, my core value, and my goal are all in alignment.

Suppose I meet a friend while I am hiking around the Guelph Lake and we end up having fun talking and hiking. My friend suggests that we go kayaking on the Lake rather than continue hiking as they are finding the hike to be challenging. What do I do?

I can continue to fulfill my goal of hiking around Guelph Lake, but I am enjoying spending time with my friend and will miss this enjoyment if I continue on by myself. So although I have achieved my goal for the day by continuing on with my hike, I have not remained in alignment with my intention or my core value. By focusing solely on my goal I would have missed an opportunity that would have created a much better outcome.

Or I can honour my core value (Wellness) and my intention (to enjoy being physically active) but shift my goal to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity and spend time with my friend kayaking on Guelph Lake rather than setting off on my own to hike around the Lake.

When we align our intention with one of our core values and honour this on a daily basis our goals can remain flexible allowing us to take advantage of unexpected opportunities that come along. When we remain in alignment with who we are while taking advantage of opportunities we hadn’t even known existed before.

We become very powerful deliberate creators.

The awesome thing about this level of alignment is that it works in our daily life regardless of whether our goals are personal or career oriented.

How often do you set a goal but never achieve it? How many New Year’s Resolutions have you made and actually achieved?

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