Intention
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack;
and you may find yourself in another part of the world;
and you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile;
and you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife;
and you may ask yourself, well how did I get here?
Talking Heads, “Once In A Lifetime,” 1980, Sire Records Company
As with any work of art, what the artist intended and what the viewer or listener takes away from the work can be totally different messages. As I hear and find meaning in the lyrics they speak to some degree of life on autopilot or cruise control (like being behind the wheel of that large automobile). We might look up and ask where did time go? I've been on this job for twenty-five years. Do I have twenty-five years of experience or twenty-five years of repeating one year of experience? Often the “decisions” we make are the result of what we don't do, rather than what we set out to do.
Continuing with the automobile analogy, it’s the difference between cruise control and GPS navigation. With cruise control you set the speed limit and unless it is disengaged, or the brake is applied, you will sail along to your destination at the set speed. No effort, just cruising along. If you don’t have a destination in mind, you can meander along for as long as you like. In the words of Talking Heads, we are just “letting the days go by.…”
However, GPS navigation offers much more than cruise control. With GPS you are putting a destination into the app and the app will provide you with multiple routes to get to where you want to go. You can choose routes with no tolls, routes along major interstate highways, or routes along local highways. But in order for these functions to work you first have to set a destination. In other words, you have to declare an intention.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines intend as: “to have in mind as a purpose or goal;” and intention as: “what one intends to bring about, a determination to act in a certain way.” There's a place for future intentions in our life and there's also a place for being present in the now. You can actually have an intention to be more mindful of the present moment. Or you can have an intention to not be a prisoner of your past. As you see, we don’t have to view being present and having intentions as contradictory. I'm a big proponent of being present; being mindful of the now. Acknowledging that now is all we have. The past is memory, and the future is unborn. But I'm equally aware of the need to set more intentions lest we find ourselves asking the question of Talking Heads: well, how did I get here?
Intentions and intention setting are not limited to the bigger aspects of your life that are your personal GPS life navigator. This includes matters in the various domains of your life (career, family, personal, social, civic, etc.) that are meaningful to you, and that require intentionality in goal setting to get there. Setting an intention can be as simple as - from a time perspective - the next hour or the day. You might want to merely be single task focused for the next sixty minutes. Or your intention could be something long-term and more significant like deciding to leave your place of employment and start your own business in a year's time.
There are many examples in between both of those extremes. But most importantly the intention is something that is important and meaningful to you. Something that you are willing to strive to achieve. Something important enough that you would declare that it is your purpose to achieve this goal.
The journey of pursuing the intention is equally significant as achieving the intention. Never mistake the power of the journey. Never underestimate what you discover, what you learn, and what you become awakened to along the journey to achieving your intention.
Here's the truth: the setting of the intention and the pursuit of the intention will serve you well even if you never achieve the goal. The resolve to move in the direction of what you seek is sufficient alone to living The Meaningful Life.
However, if we do not begin the process of setting intentions, we may be stuck in the condition described in the memorable refrain from Once In A Lifetime: same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as ever was, same as it ever was.
Reflection Questions:
What is at least one thing in one area of your life (including work) where you would like to set an intention (the what)?
What is it about this intention that makes it important (the why) to you?
What, strategy, tasks, and tactics (the hows) will be necessary to achieve this intention?
What will be your method to determine if you have successfully achieved (the result) this intention?
After you have spent some time in this new journey, ask yourself: What do my actions look like when compared to my declared intention (plan v. performance)?