Understanding your intentions is another important part of developing your self-awareness for real wellness. We have discussed in the last two blogs that knowing your values and priorities is important for building self-awareness. Let’s recap: values are how you wish to be, and priorities are what you wish to be doing and spending your time and resources on. Your intentions are your why.
An intention could be what a person hopes to bring about; for example, they might visit a friend whose beloved pet is sick to offer support. It may be to express a value they hold, like being a caring friend. In rehabilitation medicine, the intention behind the care we offer is to support each person we see to optimise their function and quality of life. Fundamentally, however, your intentions are about meeting your needs. As humans, we have all sorts of needs – emotional, physical, and spiritual. In medicine, I consider a patient’s biological, psychological, spiritual and social health issues and needs, using the biopsychosocial spiritual framework of health.
Think of a time when your emotional, physical, and spiritual cup felt full and reflect on your lifestyle at the time. Chances are you were living in balance and meeting your holistic needs. By knowing your needs and intentions, you are more likely to meet them and feel well. Further, intentions that are conducive to real wellness align with your values and priorities. In my work, I view a patient’s values and priorities as fundamental to their spiritual needs.
It is masterful to be clear on why you do all you do. This clarity keeps you in the driver’s seat of your life and helps you to cruise along undistracted by the chaos of living and the influences within and around you. It helps you meet your needs and stay on your path during times of challenge – knowing your why fuels self-determination, self-agency, and measured action.
Your life is precious and fleeting, so if you are on a personal mission for real wellness, you want to be sure that what you fill your life with is working for you. You don’t want to spend years inadvertently doing things to please others if they are not what you need and desire. You deserve a life that you choose. Ask yourself why you do stuff. Why are you making certain choices? What’s driving your actions? Your answers to these questions should help you to clarify the intentions behind your efforts, and what’s most meaningful to you in life.
It makes sense then that having some self-awareness around why, what and how you do what you do is a part of real wellness and self-mastery – yeah? Think of this work on self-awareness as the foundation on which to build and expand your efforts. Once you cultivate these insights, you will have a solid base of self-awareness to return to in times of decision-making, confusion and challenge. It will help you to stay on track and live your best life!
Intention awareness influences the outcome of your actions. If you are aware of your intention before and during a task, you will be more likely to meet it. In yoga, teachers often ask students why they have come to class and what their intentions are for the practice. This facilitates a student’s insight into their needs for the practice, so they have a better chance of meeting such needs. I usually find myself showing up to yoga to be my best version. Yoga brings presence, calm, and grounding to my life and it just feels so good. So, my intentions for practice are usually to bring more presence, calm, grounding and good feelings. When I approach a class with these intentions top of mind, it helps me to ensure I cultivate these properties and leave feeling fulfilled.
Tasks you undertake will have a different effect on your wellbeing depending on the intention driving that activity. Your intentions directly impact how you feel and conduct yourself while doing something and once it is done. Doing yoga while consciously aware that I am doing so to become more calm means I may practise it more calmly and be more likely to leave the class calm. In contrast, if you practise yoga to tick ‘move my body’ off your to-do list, as opposed to striving to achieve a state of flow (this a term commonly used to describe the state of mind when you are deeply attuned to what you are doing, like mindfulness, you are fully engaged in the present) and relaxation, it will feel different at the time and you will have a different after-effect. You are most likely to feel accomplished having completed a goal but maybe less relaxed and Zen.
It is masterful to consider the intention behind a task before you start, to ensure you will reap the benefits of your efforts in the way you need. Have you ever done art with the intention of being creative but ended up doing it simply to get it done for completion’s sake so you could get on to other activities? Maybe the intention of creativity left your awareness, and you became distracted by an urge to be finished? It’s far less rewarding doing art this way when you need to be creative. My point is, to best fulfil a need, be aware of your intentions when you undertake the goal you set yourself. Otherwise, you can miss out on the benefits of whatever you’re doing. What is the point in undertaking activities like that?
Note that it is perfectly okay to have more than one intention. Sticking with the artist example, you may hold both the intentions to be creative, productive and earn some cash to provide an income to support your family. In this instance, once you have creatively produced a piece to sell, you will feel great having completed your goal with conscious intentions that work for you.
If we lack conscious awareness of our intentions and values, we may go about our days pretty much following our noses. Then we’re in danger of sleepwalking through life. Without clear principles to guide our actions, it’s easy to respond to situations mindlessly, haphazardly or in ways that don’t make us proud of ourselves and won’t meet our needs. You are likely to miss out on, or misuse, opportunities for growth and fulfilment.
If we are not aware of our intentions, we may inadvertently hold ones that are unhelpful. Not all intentions are going to work for you, so learn to question them. Becoming aware of my less-than-ideal intentions regarding my clinical work – to pass everything with the best possible marks without taking heed of any personal cost – was a starting point in my personal journey towards real wellness. By building this insight and self-awareness I was liberated to make choices in line with my needs and values that ended up working well for me. I was able to pick up on an intention behind my work ethic that was harming my wellbeing.
If you are aiming to fill your soul, then check in with yourself and enquire whether your intentions align with your values. When your intentions are in harmony with your values and meet this spiritual need, you will be on your path to real wellness. Say a person who values creativity and self-expression as paramount to their wellbeing decides to cultivate a garden. Their intention for this task is to meet their need of embodying these desired values (calm and connection to nature). When they undertake the task with this intention top of mind, they are most likely to be able to undertake it in this way (calmly and mindfully engaged in the gardening process, allowing it to foster a sense of connection to the natural world), and will be most likely to feel well once the artwork is complete (spiritual need has been met). However, if they rushed through the process to produce the garden quickly, then despite their impressive efficiency, they may be left feeling as needy for calm and connection as before the garden was formed. They will not have fulfilled their values-driven need to cultivate a sense of calm and connection to nature and, consequently, will be left feeling unsatisfied.
If you find yourself feeling unfulfilled despite achieving all your goals, ask yourself, ‘What was my intention here? Was it in alignment with my values and soul? Or did I inadvertently miss the mark?’ A surprisingly high number of people unknowingly design an entire life based on unclear intentions.
If you are discontent or unhappy, it may well be because the intentions driving your productivity are off track with your values. For example, someone may invest a lot of time and energy into their research role because they value learning and sharing information, leaving them feeling well despite the effort. However, another person may be expending a similar amount of effort on a role but doing so for a reason that doesn’t resonate with their heart and soul. Maybe they’re marking time while they try to figure out what career they would rather be doing? It’s highly likely the work will leave them exhausted, depleted and unsatisfied.
It is useful to review the reasons behind why you do what you do. Check that you are the one in the driver’s seat. Hopefully, you’re not conforming to some old toxic belief and conditioning that is trapping you and holding you back from being truly yourself – in other words, really well. (Note that beliefs are relevant to intentions and are discussed in detail in Chapter 9.)
Your spirit’s intention is always to embody your values. By asking yourself why you are doing something, you bring your intention into awareness, which consequently allows you to ascertain whether you are living in line with your values. This is an opportunity to make any necessary adjustments and ensure your outcome will be as you desire.
Sometimes our efforts are intended to be practical and functional. We need to pay bills, feed our kids, and keep some measure of daily hygiene. Associated with those needs are essential daily tasks, which typically feel unenjoyable. Inviting your values into the intention behind them reframes them as rewarding and can even prompt you to perform them more effectively and efficiently. I can complete the laundry and smash out the house cleaning with a ‘just get it done’ mindset, or I can do the same with the conscious intention of being loving, mindful, and present. Ironically, this usually takes the same amount of time or less, as I’m less frustrated, more aware, and make fewer mistakes (accidentally spill less crap and smash fewer glasses). Have you ever noticed that when you approach a task mindfully, you tend to complete it more easily and with fewer errors?
When you have made the effort to set your intentions, it can be powerful to remind yourself of them, especially when you are engaging in challenging or painful activities. Intentions serve as the justification behind your actions and highlight your hopes for
Intention awareness provides the power to drive and manage behaviour. The clearer you are on your intentions at the outset of an activity, the easier it is to remind yourself why you are doing something, combat internal resistance and get into action.Once you develop your self-awareness and cultivate a practice of routinely checking in on your intentions and needs, you may notice that what you do with your days can be seen as a medium to serve your values (your how).
Cultivating a conscious intention for the things you do each day leads to real wellness. Asking yourself, ‘Why do I want this?’ and ‘Why am I doing this?’ will help clarify your motivation. Developing self-awareness around your intentions maximises your chance of fulfilling those intentions. It is also an opportunity to return to your internal compass as a guide to wellbeing. A conscious intention brings your values into awareness so that you can implement them.
Living with this level of self-awareness facilitates self-mastery and a life conducive to wellbeing. When you live with real wellness, you are in good control of your choices and take the opportunity to check in and ensure you are living in ways that serve you well.
