What do you intend to do?

Do you do anything intentionally, as opposed to just floating through daily life? Is there any certain thing you set time aside for every single week because you WANT to accomplish it?

​Being intentional about anything seems difficult. It means that you must plan a time for it, keep people from running over the top of that time with other activities, and then, of course, you actually have to show up and do the thing you planned to do in the first place.

​To be honest, it seems much easier to just spend any little free time I have surfing around on my phone.

​This is life now.

​I remember that during the last few years of my teaching career, it finally hit home to me that I was a role model to high school kids. Not that I ever wanted to be. Even when I didn’t think they were paying attention to me, they were. I decided to deliberately do things that I wanted them to do. If there was a piece of trash on the floor, I picked it up and threw it away. If a book were across the room instead of on the shelf, I would pick it up and take it back to where it belonged.

​When I noticed them repeating my actions, I made a big deal out of it.

​Did it make a difference? I’m not sure. Maybe it didn’t change the way they did things, but it did change things for me. Just this week, I happened to see some piece of trash on the floor. Before making a decision about what I was going to do with it, the thought - who are you when nobody is watching - went through my head. And I picked it up.

By the way

​This seems like a good time to let you know that I am far from perfect, hence the reason I never wanted to be a role model to high school kids. But intentional? Yes. I am intentional, and I hope that is a word that comes to mind when people think about me.  

​The idea of scrolling on my phone at the end of each day seems lazy, especially when I want to…

​Write a book

Finish painting the inside and outside of my house

Meet a friend for lunch (seems so easy, right?)

Finish the articles I need to write

Fold the laundry

Create some videos for a local group

Meal plan

Do my bookkeeping

Find better insurance

Work out

Read one of the ten books I’m currently reading

​I WANT to do all these things, but I know that if I don’t break them down into smaller pieces, I’ll never even approach them.

​To be as intentional as possible, I have to pencil things out in my planner. When the end of the day hits, and it would be super easy to just sit on my couch and scroll, this is when I need to look at my planner and challenge myself to accomplish one thing. Who doesn’t love a little challenge?

​Maybe I can set a timer and work on my bookkeeping for 15 minutes. Perhaps I could find photos on my phone that I’ll use in the videos. Maybe I’ll read one chapter in one of the books. Whatever it is, I know it’s moving me forward toward one of my goals.

​It’s important for me to be known as someone who is intentional. When I say I’m going to do something, I plan to do it, and I like that people can bank on that fact.

Not to veer off course, but…

​Did you know our attention spans have shortened to right around 8 seconds? I did a Google search and found that answer, according to several sources. The average attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds. Oh, Lord!

​But there are people who exceed that 8 seconds on a regular basis - musicians, athletes, highly educated individuals, bookworms, artists, scientists, nature lovers, gamers, deep thinkers, and meditators. The meditators have an increased attention span of up to 20 minutes, as reported on Sedona Sky Academy’s website, sedonasky.org.

​Meditators are also more tuned into their authentic voice. The very act of meditating is listening to what is going on inside your head. It’s been known to relax the body and allow important information to cut through all the noise.

​As my daily You are a BADASS calendar says, “If you want to be a real rock star in the manifestation department, get to the point where you have both unwavering faith and unwavering gratitude for that which you desire. This is when the real magic happens because mixing faith with gratitude is the High Holy Moly of Manifesting.”

​Faith, as I’ve talked about here, and gratitude, as I’ve talked about here, seem to be the recipe for moving forward on the authenticity scale. Once you know where you’d like to end up, breaking down your intentions into smaller, bite-sized pieces and walking away from the little screen controlling your every move might just triple your steps on the path to being your truly authentic self.