How working with intention can fuel your career and personal life

While your Thanksgiving holiday might have looked a little different this year, I hope it left you with a feeling of gratitude and a sense of abundance that will carry you through the last month of 2020 and the new year. With an eye toward an abundant future, and the growth mindset that supports it, I want to touch on the idea of working with intention.

Giving thanks and pausing to express our gratitude helps ground us in the present moment. Far from a passive endeavor, gratitude requires daily practice and attention. The seemingly simple act of counting your blessings, in work and in life, can help reconnect you with your values. Giving thanks reminds you what you hold most dear, and it gives you the ‘why’ behind your work and your everyday choices.

Thinking and acting on purpose

While 2020 has necessitated that we react quickly and adapt to ever-changing circumstances, we should view reactive mode as a temporary state of being. This heightened state of awareness allows us to move quickly and solve problems in a timely manner, but leaves little room for the rest and reflection that will allow us to plan for the longer term.

Setting intentions will help pull you out of reactive mode and into a more proactive, creative mindset. Professionals with high emotional intelligence operate in a proactive mode more often.

As this psychologist describes, our brains can operate in either “autopilot” or “intentional” mode, with the latter allowing us to plan ahead and create positive change in our lives:

“The intentional system reflects our rational thinking and centers around the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that evolved more recently. According to recent research, it developed as humans started to live within larger social groups. This thinking system helps us handle more complex mental activities, such as managing individual and group relationships, logical reasoning, probabilistic thinking, and learning new information and patterns of thinking and behavior.”

He describes the autopilot function of the brain as the elephant: more dominant and more powerful. However, he says, you can learn to use the intentional system to drive and direct the elephant.

I love that imagery. Your emotions, survival instincts and other automatic responses have great power – and for good reason, in terms of survival – but you do not have to allow that power to overwhelm you. Intentionality places you in charge of the elephant’s direction and impact.

In contrast to goals, which tend to feel more rigid and concrete, intentions reflect the values you would like to embody in your life. Intentions can certainly help you achieve goals, but they don’t necessarily need to be tied to a specific end point.

An example of intentions related to your work might include:

I intend to remain open to new opportunities and growth in my career and life.
I intend to actively listen to colleagues and work to foster collaboration and innovation within my team.
I intend to share my contributions and value with the world in order to play bigger.
I intend to create financial peace and freedom in my life by maximizing my paycheck, saving more and investing for my future.

Any intention you choose should have a positive tone. Write them in an active voice and with a positive angle: “I intend to focus on my health and wellbeing” rather than “I am too heavy, I need to lose weight.”

The power of an intention lies in believing the positive end goal you plan to achieve. It also helps to remember that intentions are fluid. There’s no hard and fast end point, so each day is a new chance to embody the intentions you have set – and to create new ones that continue to motivate you and inspire you.

Setting intentions for the new year

As we close out the year, now is a great time to consider your personal vision for 2021. What would that year look like if you were living up to your own intentions?

Sometime between now and December 31, set aside a few hours (in smaller blocks, if needed) to thoughtfully consider your values and goals, and then set intentions that will bring you closer to both.

Ask yourself:

Who do I want to become over the course of the year?
How would I like to grow this year?
Which habits no longer fit with my vision for my life?
What kind of relationships would I like to nurture (personal and professional)?
How would I like to change my relationship with money and finances?
Which actions would best support my physical and mental health?
What is my ‘why’ that drives my career choices?
How do I envision my professional life at the end of the year?

Be sure to touch on various aspects of your life: personal, relationships, money, health and career. Each of these areas has an impact on all other aspects of your life, and setting positive intentions in one area supports the health of the whole.

Going through this exercise now will help you move into a growth mindset before the year begins, and it will also remind you of the power you have over your own destiny. Can you control everything that might happen in the next 12 months? No, of course not, but you can take back control over what is in your power. Your mindset and your ability to follow through on your intentions with action are within your realm of influence.

To learn more about cultivating strong emotional intelligence skills that can help you go from surviving to thriving, contact me for a complimentary strategy call. I am a certified Social + Emotional Intelligence Coach, and I love working with high achievers committed to improving their work performance so they can get paid what they are worth and have careers aligned to their values.