It’s the beginning of the New Year and everyone has a resolution. Most resolutions are created in the spirit of the event, but very few are realized in real life with intention and focus.
What normally happens is, we begin to hope. We hope that we can lose weight or we hope that we can make more money. Hope doesn’t do what intention will do.
How Far Can Hope Take You?
When we’re young, people often ask us what we want to do when we become adults. No one ever tells us the details in order to get to that destination.
This leads us to hoping and wishing for the desired result. If we don’t know any other way to become what we want to be, we don’t don’t how to take the necessary steps to get there.
You can hope all you want, but the only thing that will change is the amount of time you’ve wasted. A car that doesn’t move doesn’t go anywhere. Thinking about the destination won’t magically get you there and hoping won’t either.
Hope is a good place to start, but it won’t carry you to your end goal. Now, we must connect our hope to intention. When the connection is made, things will start to happen and you will see more opportunities to grow.
Intention Involves Work
Intention is where the real work begins. Doing things on purpose builds your character and allows you to design your own path to success, with confidence.
Do you hope to win the game or do you practice in order to have the best advantage to win the game? Will you hope to read two books in one month, or will you come up with a strategy to read two books in one month?
The difference is night and day. Hope feels good in your mind, but intention will actually exercise your mind to get to where you want to be.
With intention, you know what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. You create a deadline and you think of alternate ways of following through. If you don’t make your deadline, you intentionally keep going anyway.
Be intentional with your free time. Create strategies to reach your achievements. We see successful people, but we don’t see the intentional work that went into their accomplishments.
How To Be Intentional
Understand that being intentional will take work (that’s why it’s called intention, not hope). Make your habits a daily practice in your life, so that you are making progress, everyday.
Make a detailed plan and put aside time to do productive work. This means actually doing the small things that will eventually lead to the big things. Don’t hope you’ll start walking this week, actually get out the door and walk to the end of the street.
Even if you don’t have the appropriate gear, it shouldn’t stop you. There are some things you have to do or figure out along the way, but the most important thing is to start.
All you need to do now, is walk everyday to the end of the street. As the days continue, go farther to develop your stamina and endurance. This is how you develop a habit with intention, which will lead to reaching your goals. There’s no other way to get there – you must simply make a detailed plan, put in the time and DO IT!
Stack The Odds In Your Favor
Nothing happens just because. People accomplish what they set out to do by being intentional and deliberate with their habits. Again, you may see their success, but you never see the details that produced it.
Make it where you will see progress in your life. Only you can force yourself to have better focus, discipline and consistency. Demand more from yourself than others. Know that it won’t get done, unless you take on the personal responsibility and do it.
Instead of looking at the next year, concentrate on today, this week, next month or the next ninety days. Once you begin, you’ll see results within a month and definitely in a year.
Don’t cheat yourself. Be productive on purpose, but most of all, be more intentional than hopeful.
#BeGoalden
