Training to Live with Intention

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Don’t wait. Start small. Learn as you go.

I use this phrase often. It's a sort of mantra for Student of Intention.

It reminds me to train to be intentional before expecting I am intentional. I focus on just getting something out. Naming a few moments I want to experience. I develop awareness and perspective. I better understand what I am getting and giving in my decisions. I see nuance and realize the stakes. Like a muscle, my awareness grows stronger. I better know what intentions matter. What moments I want to experience more often.

The core tool I use to date is The 5 Buckets - a framework for living with intention. I summarize the framework in this one-page Intention Guide. Consider this a nudge to take it for a walk. Maybe print it out. Scribble an intention, doodle on it over coffee then see what happens.

There are lessons in just getting intentions on paper. I forego scheduled intentions all the time. When I do, I’m not happy about it. But I understand what I miss and potentially why. It is enlightening and helpful training to living deliberately.

I explain further in my upcoming book. But if you’re open to it, I want to help now. If you download the Intention Guide and name a few intentions next week, let me know. I’d love the feedback and am happy to collaborate.

Stealing Time

Maybe you’re thinking this guy is full of shit. Or maybe you’re drifting off, half reading and half thinking about closing out some tabs. Or you’re one of many thinking you do not have enough time. Not enough time to do something like this. Not enough time to be intentional.

All good. When I started using The 5 Buckets, I wasn’t looking for more time. I was after balance mostly. For me, more time came as a byproduct. I found more time once I began the practice of naming intentions each week. Recently, I came across the idea of stealing time.

Julia Cameron describes it well in her book, The Right to Write. She writes a chapter called The Time Lie. A part reads:

If we learn to write from the sheer love of writing, there is always enough time, but time must be stolen like a quick kiss between lovers on the run. As a shrewd woman once told me, “The busiest and most important man can always find time for you if he’s in love with you and, if he can’t, then he is not in love.” When we love our writing, we find time for it.

These are Julia’s words so resist faulting me. Deciphering whether someone is in love with you is brutal work. Apologies if we opened a wound.

I love her metaphor of stealing a quick kiss. What a cool way to write about grabbing time by the collar. I also subscribe to her idea. If we love something enough, we find time for it. Figure out what moments we want to experience and we’ll find time for them.

I steal time to write. Steal time to run on the beach, brew tea, read Julia, walk Bernie and share conversation my old friend, Kevin. Each time I do, I'm that much closer to living with intention.

How might you steal some time this week? Let me know in the comments or shoot me an email at [email protected]

Feeling extra intentional? Listen to the Student of Intention Podcast on Apple,Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.