Create Your Intentional Life

Live with intention or by default

There’s much talk about intentional living lately. But what does this mean? Intentional living is consciously living in alignment with your values and beliefs.

It’s opposite to what many people do. They live in default mode, being satisfied to only take action when disasters occur.

Intentional living is about an awareness of who you want to be and how you want to live. Of making that choice and then being disciplined enough to do it consistently.

How to live your life intentionally

Take the time, take control of your life, and make decisions that matter. Not to your Mom or your best friend. Matter to you.  Choose the course for your life or life will make those choices for you. And those choices will likely be haphazard and unpleasant. In other words, take control while you still have time to create an exciting life or one of peace and calm if that is your preference.

Try these 10 tips to help you live with intention:

1 | Your choices matter. An intentional life is all about making choices that make sense for you and your beliefs. Determine the kind of life you want to lead and direction you want to take that will create the results you want. Change as necessary life isn’t static.

But choose. Your past needn’t be an issue. You may have been afraid to make a choice and fail. It’s true, you can’t fail if you never try. You don’t want to make an incorrect choice. However, this thinking is a trap. You should make a reasonable choice and give it your best effort. Without it, you may not experience the success and happiness that you deserve.

Your greatest power is the power of decision.

“It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.”

— Roy Disney

2 | Visualize your dream life in detail. Have a target in mind. Think about how you’d like to live. Be bold-spirited and leave your doubts and limitations behind for a moment. Go for broke it’s your life.

Consider your ideal day. How would you like to spend your time? Who else would be there? Where would you live? What would your finances be like? Does it include travel or education? Give it some thought. Write it down in a journal or a piece of paper. Refer back to it often.

3 | Know your values and beliefs. A large part of intentional living is living aligned with your values and your beliefs. It’s not about reacting to everything in the most expedient fashion. It’s about proactively living on your terms. It’s necessary to be intimately familiar with your beliefs and values to accomplish that.

4 |Prioritize the first things first. Money isn’t the main thing, but it’s an important thing. Money is great for solving many of life’s challenges such as food and housing. It’s also a necessary resource that affords you the ability to do the things you want to do like traveling. If you’re having financial struggles, it makes the most sense to work on your finances first.

Make a logical progression for each part of your life you’d like to change. Your health is key to your enjoyment of life. If you need to lose 100 pounds, going for a daily walk and eliminating high-calorie drinks would be a good beginning. After a month of walking, you could add additional exercise and diet changes.

Focus on financial and health issues first. After you’ve gained some momentum, you can address the other parts of your life.

5 | Set goals for the major areas of your life. These typically include your home, career, relationships, and education. Of course, you can add other categories as you need them, depending on your aspirations and values.

6 | Choose or create habits to support those goals. Intentional living is much easier with supportive habits in place. You’ll run out of willpower otherwise. Select simple, but effective habits that will help you to reach your goals and begin implementing them.

7 | Decide how you will spend your time. Most of us don’t give a lot of thought to what we do each day. Keeping your dreams and values in mind, what is the best thing for you to do at this moment? What do you need to accomplish today? Have you made a plan? Make choices and avoid operating on autopilot.

8 | Master your impulses. Most of our impulses lead us down the wrong path. They’re often habitual and related to pleasure or discomfort avoidance. Intentional living is about making rational decisions and exercising consistent follow through regardless of comfort. Following your impulses are the opposite of intentional living.

9 | Reject distractions. This includes all distracting thoughts of the past or future. Intention requires presence. Distractions are things you shouldn’t be doing at that moment. Even paying your bills can be a distraction if you should be doing something more important at that time.

10 | Take stock of your day. How well did you do today at living intentionally? What challenges did you face? Where did you fall short? What can you do tomorrow even better than you did it today? What win did you have that you can build on? Learn something new each day for the future.

 My final thought

Are you choosing and creating your life or just living by default? Having a life, that you love will never happen by accident. Be courageous enough to choose the life you want for yourself. Decide the kind of person you want to be. Make your decisions and choose your actions accordingly. Remember, when you refuse to make a choice, you have made your choice.

Be present in your life. Be in control of your life. Be happy in your life.

I would appreciate it if you please share this post with your family and friends.

Your Routines Favorable Or Failure

My morning routine

I have been asked by a few people to share my morning routine. So, before I begin for those who don’t know me well, I am fortunate to work at home but, my honey still works a 9-5 job and we have 4 dogs.

6:30 Get up, let the dogs out, visit the powder room, and put the coffee on. I like to get comfortable on the patio, weather permitting, with my gratitude journal and write down what I felt grateful for on the previous day. These are large things like being grateful for the roof over our heads, or work that is fulfilling, and small things such as playing catch with our dog Luke, or taking food to a widowed neighbor.

When I complete my journal entry it’s time to sit quietly and mindfully soak up the beauty of a new morning. The consistent breeze is always welcome and the birds gathering for breakfast with their different songs are a joy to hear. 

7:15 I stack a couple of records on the Victrola, I believe music should always fill a home. Michael gets up and together we prepare 4 dog breakfasts and hand them out. While he goes off to ready himself for work, I make his breakfast, pack his lunch, wash up dog bowls fill bird feeders, change birdbath water, and put breakfast out for my stray cat.

8:00 A kiss goodbye and out the door he goes. Time to gather laundry and start a wash. While the washer runs for the next hour or so, I do housework. Different tasks based on the day of the week.

9:00 Hang laundry on the lines, play catch with Luke.

9:30-12:30 Work on my business. I do the harder tasks early since the dogs, nap longest in the morning.

12:30-1:30 Eat lunch, play with the dogs, and take the laundry off the line.

My morning routine today is different than it was ten years ago when I worked out of my home. Yet it still serves me and allows me to be productive. As I am prone to frequent migraines my aim has always been the same. Enough structure in a routine so I needn’t think and can save that for my work. With enough flexibility to put off anything that is not either a necessity or urgent.   

“The most important thing I do each morning is steady myself by not allowing a sense of urgency to penetrate.”

— Matthew Weatherly-White

Are your routines beneficial or unsuccessful?

I know many people who hate the word routine. For them it conjures up images of drudgery and lack of spontaneity. But, we all have them to lesser or greater degrees and they save us time and increase our productivity by reducing the amount of decisions we need to make throughout our day. The trick is to keep them fluid and not so rigid that they feel like a straitjacket holding us back

Your present routines may be alright, but are they helping you to close in on your goals? What about supporting your priorities and values? When was the last time you looked at how well they are serving you?  

Are your routines changeable? Are you able to make incremental changes that enable them to serve you? Even the smallest tweak in a routine can make a huge difference, because they’re performed with regularity, and that adds up.

Questions about your routine:

Morning routine. From the time your alarm goes off until you’re out the front door, what do you do?

●        What time do you get up? How many times do you hit snooze?

●        What do you think about while lying in bed?

●        Do you have a healthy breakfast?

●        Do you do anything besides eat and prepare for work? If so, what? Are you doing those things optimally?

●        How much time do you waste that you could be using productively?

 
Evaluate your daily routine

How is your usual routine working for you? Are there any distinct faults or places/times where you would like to make alterations?

Learn to recognize wasted time. Look at your routines and ascertain how much time you squander every day. Include all valueless activities, such as watching TV. You may find it shocking when you realize the number of hours you’re wasting. Instead, consider how to improve the use of that time.

Examine your goals, values, and priorities. Make some time to write these down. It’s not feasible to assess your routine without having a standard to evaluate against. This step is necessary. If you haven’t any idea about what’s important to you and what you hope to accomplish, you’re seriously wasting a lot of your time.

Don’t forget any challenges you presently have in your life. Do your routines help, harm, or have no effect on solving those challenges?

Now, go back to your routines and make those changes that make sense for you.

●        What activities can you do each day that contribute to what you’re trying to accomplish?

●        What can you do each day that will put you closer to reaching your goals?

●        What is the optimum way to use your time in each of your routines?

It’s possible to accomplish more in the morning than just getting yourself to work on time. And, with a proactive pre-bedtime routine, you could teach yourself to play an instrument or acquire a new skill that could help your career.

Resource Reading From Previous Posts:

Do You Feel Your Gratitude

How Mindfulness Helps You Enjoy The Journey

You can accomplish so much more with effective routines. What are yours? If you liked this post, please share it.