Hi guys! Welcome to the 32nd episode of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast!
Hang out until the end of this episode because I give 5 things you can do every day to work towards intentional living.
What immediately pops into your mind when you hear intentional living? Do you roll your yes and say “ahhhh here we go”? Are you intrigued but only for a minute and then you go back to doing what you’re doing? Or are you totally on board?
I ask these questions, because I really am curious. Now, having said that, if you are listening to this podcast…I’m assuming you don’t roll your eyes when you hear it or you would be in constant eye roll mode with every one of my episodes!
But seriously. This is my perspective. This is a perspective of someone that hasn’t always lived intentionally but because of life experience I now realize the more intentional my life is, the better it is. It’s not perfect and never will be because I’m human and not a machine. But there are so many benefits I get from being intentional, I’m going to quickly list a few…
First of all…
I set boundaries
One of the boundaries is for my time (Social media boundaries, phone time boundaries, distraction boundaries. (I’m still working on this but it has come a long way)
Another boundary is I’m able to say no now and that used to be hard for me
I don’t feel the need to explain myself when I say no.
I know my plan for the day and I know it starts out with a mindful practice every morning
I get my exercise in every single day that I plan to because I schedule it
I have been on schedule with every single project I have worked on
I used to wake up, hoping that I would make time for the things I needed to do. I would take every phone call that came my way. My plan for the day was hopefully being productive. I would react to every single thing that came around. I also would start a project and if it got hard I would distract myself with social media or a phone call to my friends or family.. Sometimes I got my work done and sometimes I didnt. It really depended on how many distractions I had for the day. And sometimes I would create distractions so I didn’t have to do the things. I would tell myself I need to stay up to date with current events, what’s going on in the world…Am I paying attention because I can affect change or am I paying attention because my brain is addicted to the drama and it’s an easy mindless distraction…oh and by the way there is a new crisis or drama every day so we can be soooooo distracted especially now! You know how I affect change? I stop paying attention to the latest crisis and recognize that most of the time my life isn’t being affected by the drama on the internet. So where is a good place to start if you’re wanting to affect change in your life?
A good place to start in my opinion is the actual definition of Intentional living. The definition of Intentional is Done by design. Synonyms are conscious, deliberate, purposeful and willful.
So it’s living a life by design!
In my design world. When I’m working on a project, I have a process that works for getting a project from My clients desires into a space that is everything they dreamed it would be. This process is the exact same process that works for intentional living.
Picture what you want your life to look like
Visualize it with vision boards (digital or using magazines and glue)
Put a plan together for it
Schedule it by putting it on your calendar
Follow the plan (even if there are little hiccups here and there and there will be.
Now listen. I also know that sometimes we are living in survival mode. Survival mode means you are in a crisis or there is a current crisis relevant to you, like what’s been going on with Coronavirus. But realize that survival mode needs to be temporary. We need to move from survival mode as soon as we can. You can’t live in survival mode and thrive. Staying in survival mode too long can make you feel like a victim. Victimhood gives your power to someone other than yourself.
Living intentionally means taking responsibility for every aspect of our life.
It can be easy to follow the daily grind and think it’s going to get you somewhere awesome, maybe you’ll luck out or you get one big hit, maybe you’ll win the lottery to get where you want to be. Guys hoping to get lucky isn’t a plan.
Our brains are conditioned and wired to help us survive. It isn’t conditioned or wired to help us to thrive. The reason our brain is wired simply for survival is because our ancestors lived in constant survival mode….having to find food, find shelter and run from saber tooth tigers. We don’t have to do that anymore. For most of us, Food is abundant, shelter is not an issue and I don’t even think saber tooth tigers are around anymore. Someone will fact check me on that I’m sure. But we can train our brain to help us thrive! How do we do that? How do we train our brain to help us thrive?
One of the best and easiest things you can do:
Prioritize and schedule your day.
Every morning rewire your brain for positivity by grateful journaling
Give your brain a chance to be still by meditating for at least 5 minutes a day.
Pick up a practice of listening to a positive podcast Like mine…I do a new episode 3 times a week and they are usually under 10 minutes so you can listen while you’re making coffee, exercising, or driving to work!
Finally, Download the “my three words” PDF on my website and come up with your very own 3 anchor words to guide your day! I put my website in the show notes but it’s heididawson.com, it’s new and it’s beautiful so go check it out!
Stop waiting for things to happen and go out and make them happen! Be intentional with everything you do!
Ok guys I hope you found this helpful! Share it with as many friends as possible and I will talk to you in a few days!
