There’s no ‘right’ way to live intentionally. The practice will be as individual and unique as you are.
I’m fairly new to the practice, but can report that it is making a huge difference. I’m getting more done in a shorter space of time, I’m feeling more content and happier and very importantly, for me, I’m not wasting time on stuff that does not serve me.
Here are some of the strategies that I’m using to help me with this new intentional living practice.
Identify your personal values.
Values are beliefs that guide our life choices and actions. They determine what matters to us the most. Values describe the type of person we want to be, the way we care for ourselves and others and our interactions with the world round us.
If you are making choices aligned with your values, you are more likely to be making choices that have purpose, choices that are helping you to live with intention, and choices which make you happy.
Are you making time for things that make your heart sing.
Do you even know what these are? Ask yourself, ‘what am I passionate about?’, ‘what brings me joy?’.
Sometimes we are no busy on auto-pilot and serving everyone else around us, that we forget about our own wants and needs.
Focusing on and making time for your passions is an important factor to living intentionally, because if you’re acting on your passions, you’re acting with purpose. More often than not your passions are related to your purpose in life and when you are doing this you feel happy and fulfilled.
Be Present and Self Aware.
I’m pretty sure that if we had a camera following us over the course of a waking day, we would be surprised, if not shocked, to see just how much stuff we do, that doesn’t serve us. We are creatures of habit and ‘run’, 95% of our waking time/life, via our subconscious.
Becoming present and self-aware are two things we can do to get us out of the habit of being ourselves and becoming aware of what we are actually doing and whether what we are doing is aligned to our values.
As I mentioned in my newsletter “Living With Intention”, I was wasting 16+ days a year watching crap television, because I was doing so without any thought, or thinking it was a time for me to relax. It was a habit, and in my opinion a bad one, when I figured out how much time I was wasting, it really made me sad. But once I became aware of it, I intentionally chose to do something else which mirrored my values.
Keep a track of your habits.
It’s quite helpful to keep track of your habits, to see the progress you are making. And, progress means prizes. Prizes of living intentionally.
Yes, it can be time consuming depending on how you use it, but there are many apps out there which you can download to your phone. It’s a good way to motivate yourself to actually practice the new habits, plus you can see evidence of how much you have achieved.
Brain Dumping.
I am a massive fan of brain dumping. I do it every morning and evening. For me, it’s a great way to clear my head by just writing out whatever is going through my head, like should haves, could haves, didn’t do’s etc. I don’t beat myself up, I just dump it all in a journal, which I never read.
But I feel like I’m starting and finishing the day with a clear head and it helps me to live intentionally by one of my values of freedom. I don’t want to be hostage to stuff in my head which is not serving me.
Here to you and living intentionally.
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Love
Marie xox