Setting Intention, Acting With Purpose To Change How Your Life Feels

We trade autopilot for intention and explore how small mindset shifts change the feel and outcome of ordinary days. From haircuts to hard meetings, we show how four questions turn tasks into meaningful moments you can remember.

• defining intention beyond schedules and lists
• the difference between goals, plans, and intentions
• using presence to transform routine tasks
• the four questions that shape clear intentions
• linking feelings to outcomes for motivation
• replacing multitasking with mindful focus
• turning meals and chores into simple rituals
• setting daily, monthly, and yearly intentions
• choosing state of mind as the driver

Enjoy your intentional day

Chapters

• 0:00 Snow, Space Weather, And Awe
• 2:50 A Packed Day Meets A New Topic
• 3:30 Defining Intention Beyond Schedules
• 6:40 From Tasks To Outcomes With Presence
• 10:20 Yearly Reflection And Micro Intentions
• 13:40 Goals Versus Intentions In Practice
• 17:20 Mindfulness, Motivation, And Meaningful Work
• 21:00 Cooking With Love And Everyday Rituals
• 24:10 Four Questions To Set Intentions
• 27:00 Emotions Behind Goals And Inspired Action

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:10

We are online.

SPEAKER_00: 0:12

I look at this overcast day with little bits of snow falling down, and I want to go stand outside, stare up at the sky, and scream, stop it! Yeah. Enough.

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

Yeah. And we watched last night. What was this? We watched this to geophysicist, astrologer, I don't know what the very smart person talking about the polar vortex. And how it's usually it's normal, but now it's wobbly and has huge different jet streams that are wavy.

SPEAKER_00: 0:48

He was explaining how space weather affects Earth weather. Because we had big pulses of, I don't even remember the word now that he used.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09

For me, I was just in awe of the guy. He was just so incredibly intelligent. Like when you listen to him, you say, whoa, he's gotta understand a lot of stuff to be able to break it down like this. And he had graphics and everything. Like it was unbelievable. Yeah. And just this pleasant man who I admired last night.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31

Yeah. His name is Frainy Stephon Burns.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35

Stefan Burns. What a great guy. He's been on a bunch of stuff lately. I think people are paying attention to his stuff. He was explaining 3i Atlas and he was explaining, you know, comets, and he's been, he's been, yeah, he's a YouTuber and he's he deserves the attention.

SPEAKER_01: 1:53

Yeah, absolutely. And did he oh here and did he say the snow is coming to an end? He said that the way that the polar, if I'm getting this right, the way the polar vortex that is usually circular and it's at sort of the top of the earth, north pole type thing. Now it's different, it's wobbly, it's all over the friggin' place. And he said that that wobbliness can influence our weather for like the next three years. So I don't know if the snow's ever gonna end.

SPEAKER_00: 2:33

We live in our own little private world of ice age. However, it's my intention that the snow ends.

SPEAKER_01: 2:43

Yes, whether we move away from snow is gonna end. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So today's podcast is probably gonna be a little short as well. And we've got this week is is just nuts. But anyway, it might be a little shorter than normal.

SPEAKER_00: 3:00

So well, it's it's perfect that this is our topic for exactly that reason. You know, I we have a list of to-dos today that overwhelms me.

SPEAKER_01: 3:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:12

It starts with our our chat this morning in a podcast, but it's like a long list of things to do for you and for me, and we're down to one car, and it's winter, and it's snowing, and it's the long drive today. Like there's just so much to do. Yeah. And our topic is intention. It's kind of like life has brought us the opportunity in the podcast to make our day better. Do you see it?

SPEAKER_01: 3:42

I see it. It's becoming more clear.

SPEAKER_00: 3:47

And I think that that's it's easy to say that's the problem, you know. Like we want to talk about the idea of forming intention before action, before long periods of time, short periods of time, making intentions for your day, making intentions for your for your week, making intentions for your year, making intentions so that your behaviors, your actions are deliberate and focused on an outcome, not just on getting the thing done. Yeah. Right? Like today, we got to be at the hairstylist by 9 a.m., right? And then you've got an hour with him, and then it's off to the next thing. Yeah. But how do we pause and say, wait a second, I I don't want to just get to the hairdresser. I want a really nice haircut, right? I want to come out of there feeling good, having had a good experience. And and how he's a he's a chatter, so he's gonna make you laugh. And so now it's like, what do I expect? What's gonna happen in this? What do I want out of it? Right. Completely different from I gotta get to the hairdresser by nine. Yeah, which is it's not so much an intention or it's a very limited intention.

SPEAKER_01: 5:12

Yeah. I think for me, like I if I was to create an intention, which I'm I am, is just not to sit there and worry for the whole time I'm in the chair about my meetings afterwards and where they're gonna be held, and if I can get up, you know, to the other side of town on time and all this stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:33

Yeah. So it's it's like intentions are about process and outcome while an agenda or a or a list of things to do today or a schedule, right? That's just the the thing. It's a tool maybe to keep you on time, but it's not a tool to create for you both peace in the process and a positive outcome at the end of it.

SPEAKER_01: 6:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:03

Right. And we all do it, right? Because we lit, we're just literally creatures of habit. We are habits. I mean, I get up in the morning and I make a list of what's going to happen today. It's just what I do. I try to do that the night before. When I'm going to be really busy, I try the night before to make a list of the things I'm going to do tomorrow, because then I make sure I get everything done. But that list, as much as there's an intention behind it, it's not actually forming intentions, right? You know, like we talked about yesterday, when I'm going to listen to a podcast, or I'm going to listen to a meditation, and I might fall asleep, I might get something out of it, I might not get something out of it. Intention changes that waiting and seeing or hoping into deliberate attempt, deliberate action. Intention shifts from at 10 a.m. today, I'm going to listen to a meditation to at 10 a.m. today, I'm going to try to shift the way I feel about emotional situations by listening to this hypnotic meditation that's going to guide me through, and I am going to feel better at the end. I'm going to gain some insights. That's the whole picture, right? But we're in the habit of just meeting schedules. It's really normal. There's nothing wrong with us. It's what we were raised to do. And we often consider a day successful when all of the to-do list gets crossed off. But it doesn't change how we feel at the end of the day, where we feel exhausted. And in spite of everything we did, we don't feel accomplished. We don't feel content. And we look back on all the things we did and we're critical of them. You know, oh, I didn't do this as well as I might have, and that I dropped a ball on that. And, you know, it's it's a completely different way of living. One way is through habit, and the other way is through deliberation and intention and actively creating an outcome. And somebody's gonna say, Well, who has time for that?

SPEAKER_01: 8:17

Yeah, I think intention is meaning more and more to me. I I think for me, I uh considering last year, I think I mentioned this on the podcast before. We went through a lovely January 1st uh uh exercise where we looked at the last year and then we looked at this year and what we wanted and creating intention. And I think uh my intention last year was very much a list-like experience. And it would start with you know, me waking up in the morning and just diving right into work as soon as I got my coffee, open the computer, work, work, work. And and when I looked back at the year, I couldn't remember half of it because I think when you don't have intention, everything just blurs together. You're not being present in the moment, you're just kind of on autopilot. And yeah, so this year I'm planning, I'm trying to create this intention of being more present in in the moment, right? And and not just making an intention, uh sorry, making multiple intentions, so like daily intentions and then maybe like monthly intentions or the week, you know, going from I guess the micro to the macro intentional stuff, right? The whole year having an intention. So that January 1st of next year I can look back and say, Yeah, I think, you know, I I did well or I did well with my intention. I feel like I can think about times during this year and and feel good about them because I did not feel good about last year when I looked back.

SPEAKER_00: 10:06

I'm putting you on the spot. So, what do you think is the difference between setting a goal and setting an intention? What does it feel like?

SPEAKER_01: 10:15

Yeah, so the feeling for me is a goal is like a goal is very list-like. So I'm going to learn a new language. I'm gonna, you know, try to learn a new language. That's a goal, and an intention for that would be I want to feel present while I'm learning. I want to uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 10:43

Yeah, I'm in agreement. Where a where a goal might be a list of outcomes, yeah. Intention is a little more focused on the process, yeah. And a little more focused on your state of mind as you move through the work towards a goal. You know, they talk about a goal, clearly stated, written down, is a useful tool. When you write out how you're going to attain that goal, you call that a plan, and that's valuable, but then the plan has to be executed day by day, minute by minute. And that's broken down into tasks, right? Things you're going to do. And those tasks can be engaged mindfully with intention, an awareness of how this feeds into the outcome, and with an element of determination that what I'm doing now is going to feed into that outcome. And that setting of an intention that creates kind of a deliberation. Well, for me, it's it's the difference between goal and intention is determination, right? The goal implies an outcome, but my intention implies, you know, sort of my own personal determination that this that I'm doing right now is going to make a difference.

SPEAKER_01: 12:04

Yeah. Also in the chat, intention brings mindfulness. I think too, this came to me. I know that in the past I can have a goal, but as soon as I make intention with that goal, it's like doors start opening. Yeah. So I have to like be careful sometimes, you know, with what I oh, I want that. If I create the intention, it's like, okay, you're gonna have that next week. Get ready. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 12:38

Well, that's the value of it, right? That's the value of it. I don't know how to explain it. You can explain it by by saying that, you know, it on a quantum field level, it's intention, expectation that causes the field to collapse. You could say it that I am through much more deliberate, clear intention, manifesting some people like that as an approach, as a feeling, as an as a vibrational interpretation of that idea. I think it's 100% right that it's that there's a mindfulness element to being engaged in a task with an intention that it has a particular outcome. I mean, that's a that's that's a here and now kind of thing. And that's always valuable for so many people to have a sense that they're here and they're now and they're fully in the moment that's in front of them, that there's purpose in that moment adds a certain amount of motivation. I read a story once about a guy who ran a restaurant, and everyone who went to this restaurant just raved about it. They just, it was the most wonderful experience to them. They said it was in spite of waiting and waiting for the food to come, in spite of that part of the experience, the food itself was presented in a beautiful way and was just so filled with a flavorful, you know, pleasant, happy, exciting experience. And the owner of the restaurant, the the chief cook in the restaurant, said, Well, every meal I make, I make with love.

SPEAKER_01: 14:29

So he's placing intention into the food.

SPEAKER_00: 14:31

As he's doing what he does, there's this intention to offer something, a demonstration of love, a demonstration of health and vitality and nutrition. Anyway, I think you know, acting with intention is next level.

SPEAKER_01: 14:49

Yeah, yeah, I think it is important, set intention. I think the importance of it is different for every person, probably overlaps along. For me, it's about I don't want to regret looking back on this year. And I told I I I don't have many regrets in like the I looked back on last year when we did that exercise, and I thought, okay, I'm not gonna sit in this regret, but yeah, this isn't good. Like I need to change something. And uh so it just brought to my attention, you know, what hasn't been working, definitely hasn't been working.

SPEAKER_00: 15:26

Yeah, I think it's important that you're right. Everybody's got to ask themselves the question what would I benefit by setting an intention? What's lacking in my life? What's missing? What, in spite of all my success, or in spite of all my accomplishment, or in spite of how much I got done today, what was missing? What what wasn't there that would have made all of that worth doing emotionally, mentally, spiritually?

SPEAKER_01: 15:56

Yeah, and I I believe, again, with the whole autopilot thing, uh, we can go through a whole day and wonder, how did I get here?

SPEAKER_00: 16:04

Yeah. That's what you're fighting against, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:08

What you're fighting against is the beauty of habit, right? Means things happen well. We've done them enough times that they've gone from the conscious mind into the subconscious mind. They happen almost by themselves in so many ways. And that's just a beautiful thing. And then what it does is it allows our mind, our conscious mind, to think about other things while we're doing something else. And now we become really unpresent to the thing that we're doing because our mind is off somewhere else. And we're taught, you know, multitasking, like that's a good thing, right? We should be able to do five or six things at once. We should be able to accomplish many things in a day. And I don't know where that message comes from. I'm not sure that it's helpful.

SPEAKER_01: 16:52

Uh yeah, I definitely, well, yeah, to that multitasking idea. It definitely, I don't know where it came from exactly either, but I certainly feel like in jobs that I've had, you're praised for getting multiple things done at the same time. Right. So that just that just starts a habit.

SPEAKER_00: 17:17

But you see, that's your when when I'm at work and I'm being praised for how much I get done, my manager benefits.

SPEAKER_01: 17:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:25

Right? My manager's the beneficiary of this because they got a lot done and their job was to make sure people are doing a lot. So my manager likes me and wants me to keep doing that and praises me for doing it. And in the interim, I find my work unfulfilling.

SPEAKER_01: 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:40

I find my work meaningless sometimes. And yeah, we're really, really trained in this. We're really trained in productivity, we're really trained in doing for someone else, doing at work, doing for the family, doing, doing, doing. And it leaves us empty. And I think that that's the value of intention. You know, I keep bumping into these memes and social media that say things like, um, it doesn't matter how many years you have in your life, what matters is the life you have in your years. And I think this is what they're talking about. Yeah. It's it's one thing for me to make dinner because it's 5:30, it's time to make dinner. It's another thing for me to feed you and I well and enjoy both the process of cooking dinner and then consuming dinner, because it's dinner time. That doesn't mean, oh, look at that, we got dinner done in 45 minutes. It means was that an experience that was pleasant in its creation, pleasant in its consumption, pleasant in its after effects?

SPEAKER_01: 18:56

I have heard not to go down a whole rabbit hole, but like I have heard something to the effect of like, try, try if you can to sit down and create space for dinner. People that eat standing up apparently have, you know, their nervous system, they have issues with nervous system, weight loss, even, I think it was tied to just being more mindful about how you're eating dinner.

SPEAKER_00: 19:22

Well, there is that power of intention, right? The power of intention, if you're into quantum physics, is that it collapses the field in the way you want. So when you say, I gotta get something to eat because I'm hungry, is very different from I want to feed my body, and I want what I take into my body to really provide my body with strength and power and everything it needs. And so the intention, even just consuming the food, like you say, if I'm standing up, it's a wholly different intention than if I'm sitting down across the table with a candle.

SPEAKER_01: 19:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:59

Which is just a Tiny little thing you could do to say, to demonstrate, it's my intention to enjoy this moment.

SPEAKER_01: 20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:07

You know, add a little bit of music. It's my intention to enjoy this moment, to get the most out of this moment. You know, that's I think putting life into your ears, putting, putting real intention into what you want. With sometimes we don't even know what we want, and that's why life happens to us. I just want to get through today. Just want to make it to next week, right? Yeah. That's yeah, that's that's life that's disappearing like. All right. So how?

SPEAKER_01: 20:38

I think, well, uh the questions, the questions that uh I sort of asked the question this morning with Les help.

SPEAKER_00: 20:47

Guided meditation of sorts.

SPEAKER_01: 20:49

Yeah. How can we make a good podcast or or intention to help people? So I wrote that down for the lesson. Then I sort of went in went into meditation and brought through start with the question what do I want? What has not been working? Where do I want to go? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_00: 21:10

I was blown away by that. I loved that. You said those things. I thought, isn't that just perfect? Just guides my mind right through the whole process of setting an intention.

SPEAKER_01: 21:20

Yeah, it sort of uh covers it all.

SPEAKER_00: 21:23

Uh so say yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:25

What do I want? What has not been working? Where do I want to go? And what does that look like? And I don't think like the where do I want to go has to be a physical location. Where do I want to go is more of you know what um how do I describe it? What does it look like in your mind of what's coming up, right? And again, what does that look like? Sort of building that that world that you want, that peacefulness that you want by setting intentions in the chat. Where is this leading to? Yeah, absolutely. Where does this lead?

SPEAKER_00: 22:02

Yeah, being deliberate about that, right? It's it's not about getting done, right? Yeah, it's about how does this feed into my bigger picture, my bigger desires. So I still struggle with the what do I want? I struggle with that question. I spent most of my life doing what I thought I should do.

SPEAKER_01: 22:20

Yeah, I think, and this is a whole other podcast, probably, but uh when I asked myself last over the last couple of years, what brings me joy? And I think that ties into maybe what what we want, right? And I honestly couldn't think of much, and that felt bad.

SPEAKER_00: 22:46

Well, you know, when it when it reminds you that you're missing the mark, yeah, that there's more to your life than what you're getting out of it, that there's opportunity here that you're missing out on, that there's joy possible where it wasn't before. That's yeah, that can be, you know, it can trigger that tendency to judge ourselves. We've got to avoid that.

SPEAKER_01: 23:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 23:10

I think this is yeah, I I see what's not working. I like that question. I see what's not working, I see what I'm not getting, I see what's not happening, I see aspects of my approach that are not getting me where I want to go. And then, you know, what do I want? What's not working? Uh, what does that look like? What's the other one?

SPEAKER_01: 23:34

What do I want? What has not been working? Where do I want to go? And what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00: 23:39

Yeah. It's that outcome idea, right? Where do I want to go? What's my intention here? What will it look like if I accomplish this goal? That's my intention. It's it's like I love this idea. You can say that I want a new car. You can say that, but it's not the new car that you want. What you want is the feeling that having a new car gives you. Everything is ultimately an emotional reward, right? It's ultimately a larger sense of satisfaction that is coming from your mind and it's coming with emotion. It's an it's an experience that you're striving for. And so to be clear in your mind, what is this feeling that I'm striving for? How does this serve me? Right? What is what is the the what is the way I'm going to feel when this goal takes place?

SPEAKER_01: 24:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:40

And then these are the things I want to do, I can do, inspired action that gets me there.

SPEAKER_01: 24:46

Yeah. And besides that, excuse me, I think intention is also not just imagining the goal and feeling and everything. It's the mind, the mindset while you're moving through your life either towards that or towards something. I think when those when the monks, I think they still are moving through the states. I watched one of them was speaking on the news, and he said, if everyone I wrote this down and I've been trying to write it down each morning, and it's absolutely intentional. Today we will have a peaceful day. We will live mindfully throughout the day and in turn have a peaceful life. And I really like that because you know that's part of my intention for this year. But I think besides the things that were our goals, let's say, right? Besides our wants or intentions to achieve this or do this, I think the mindset is the driver of that.

SPEAKER_00: 25:57

Nothing more important than your state of mind.

SPEAKER_01: 25:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:01

What's come to me is that we all experience this, and it's pretty normal, and it's what we're trying to overcome here, that there's a disconnect between doing and what we would call a happier, rewarding outcome. There's a disconnect there. And intention is the bridge that connects them. And that intention, including mindfulness, including being present, including being deliberate, including being determined, including being aware of what you want as an outcome, what it looks like, what it feels like, what that feeling will be when it happens, being aware of all of that, that's intention. And unfortunately, it's can be a missing element.

SPEAKER_01: 26:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:49

But the four questions again are what do I want?

SPEAKER_01: 26:53

You know, like maybe material or mindset or whatever. What has not been working? Where do I want to go? What does that look like? Yeah.

unknown: 27:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:03

That's beautiful. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01: 27:06

Think thank uh guides or yourself or well, yeah. We're gonna wrap up today about intention. We'll talk about it more, I'm sure, over the next few days. But thanks for hanging out. We gotta get going. Enjoy your intentional day. Thank you. We will. All right, see you later.