January 5, 2012
Do you have a written vision statement or intention for:
- Your organization or your family?
- Your role in your organization or family?
- Your life? Your career? Yourself?
- Your relationship with your children? Your direct reports?
- Your relationships with your customers, suppliers, investors, employees, colleagues, manager, or boss?
- Your marriage, education, livelihood, well-being, success?
- Your vacation, the home or car you hope to buy, a conversation, an activity, a sales call, an acquisition, or a meeting?
We can set vision statements and choose our intentions and purpose for any aspect of our being. You can intend:
- Good health.
- Helping your employees fulfill their dreams.
- Being of highest and best service to your customers, employees, investors, suppliers, children, parents, and humanity.
- Being a loving partner to your spouse.
- Being a guide and mentor to your children or your direct reports.
- Being open, receptive, and kind in a conversation and using the interaction as a source of learning about yourself and others.
And then, before you say or do anything, ask yourself, “What can I say or do in this moment to BE my intention?” Before you make a phone call or respond to a comment, before you join a meeting or have a conversation, or before you open the door when you come home from work, exhale and inhale deeply. Remind yourself of your intention and ask what you can say or do to move another step toward making your intention a reality.
With practice, taking the breath becomes natural for you. With practice, reminding yourself of your intention and asking yourself how you can think and behave in a manner consistent with your intention also becomes natural for you. With practice, you are able to think these powerful thoughts just as quickly and naturally as your old thoughts.
When we choose our intentions and are mindful, we achieve clarity of purpose. We are clear on what matters most to us, on what we value. We stop “re-acting” to colleagues, customers, family members, employees, and situations and start creating what we wish to create. Our thoughts, strategies, goals, plans, actions, and reactions are focused on what is truly significant. We become inspired. We achieve significant results. We transform our relationships, our families, and our organizations.
How could you live with intention? How could you lead with intention?
For more on information on conscious, meaningful living and leading with purpose:
- Watch video: Powerful resolutions, intentions, and affirmations to create a life well-lived.
- Watch, listen, or read: How to Make Goals and Resolutions You Can Keep
- Listen or Read: Focus on What You Want, Not What You Don’t Want
- Read: What’s Your “I Have a Dream” Speech?
- Take this free Self-Assessment for a Life Well-Lived.
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