Creating powerful intentions in 3 steps

Sherrie Frank

Setting intentions can be very effective, but it’s more than just setting goals — it’s about the purposeful pursuit of your desires. When setting a powerful intention, the following clarifying questions can help identify, remove, or reframe our conscious and unconscious objections to having what we want. With this awareness at the forefront, we set ourselves up for success to fulfill our intentions.

Step 1:
Set clear intentions by asking yourself the following questions:

• What do I want?
  • State what you want in a positive manner. Move toward what you want rather than avoiding what you don’t want.
• How will I know when I have what I want?
  • Ask yourself: When I have what I want: What will I see? What will I hear? How will I feel?
• When I have what I want, what will it allow me to do, be and/or have?
  • Sit quietly and imagine your life in the future, having already created your intention. See how creating your intention changes or adds meaning to the following levels of experience:
    • Your environments—explore the changes around you. Who are you with?
    • Your behaviors—explore what you are doing differently.
    • Your skills & capabilities.
    • Your beliefs and values. What do you see? What do you hear? How do you feel? Look for your higher intention.

Step 2:
Check in with yourself by asking the following questions:

• What other areas of my life will be impacted by this intention?
  • Examples: Relationships, job, health & well-being, financial security
• When I have what I want, what of the above areas might be at risk?
  • If you identify a risk, pause and explore it. Moving forward too soon could lead to self-sabotage down the road.
• When I have what I want, what other areas of my life might improve?

Step 3:
Look for competing intentions or blind spots that may get in your way by asking the following questions:

• What has stopped me in the past from already having this?
  • It is most often a fear of something that stops us from creating what we say we want.
  • Look at the above question of what might be at risk. What are you protecting?
• What did I create instead?
  • Our strongest intention always wins; to know what the competing intention is look at the results you’ve created and are living with now.
  • How are these results taking care of you?
  • What might you be avoiding by not creating this intention?