Finding Direction in Life with Intentional Living
Finding Direction in Life with Intentional Living
“The miracle is to walk on earth.” Thich Nhat Hanh.
Many people live their life without thinking much about it, going along with what everyone else is doing, fitting in, then dying at the end. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that, though Socrates disagrees.
“The unexamined life isn’t worth living.” Socrates
It can mean a life of dissatisfaction the whole way through. And perhaps life isn’t ever going to be wholly satisfying. At least at times it won’t. To experience life more deeply, to live with fulfilment and meaning often requires a more deliberate approach.
Taking the Road Less Travelled
I read the book ‘The Road Less Travelled’ by Scott Peck in my twenties. I haven’t looked at it since, but one concept stays with me twenty years on.
Finding Direction: We Are What We Do Every Day
What we do each day is our life. Writers are people who write. Artists are people who make art. Complain all day? You’re a complainer. Feel anger all day? That is your life. Make peace all day? (Parents perhaps) You’re a peacemaker. Show compassion? You are compassionate. Work all day with no room for anything else? Own it, it’s your choice, or change it. Mean to your partner all the time? That’s you, that is.
We shift through these human things, but if we do too much of one without realising, it becomes us. It is useful to be aware of where you spend too much of your attention, energy, and time and not enough. You can decide who you want to be from now on, and how you spend your time.
By gaining awareness of how we spend life, we gain choice - we can make small significant tweaks to our daily life, sculpting our life closer to being the person we want to be. We can drop what we don’t want and expand what we do.
Intentional Living: Devotion to Your Life
Why not devote yourself to your one and only life? Many people allow their lives to slip by with little thought. I sometimes ask clients to imagine themselves in the future, on their deathbed. I ask how they feel as they look back on the life they lead.
Erik Erikson described the seven stages of man, which outlines the stages of life we all go through either successfully or less so. Most developmental stage theories end at the end of childhood, though he takes his all the way through. The final life stage, when we are old, we experience either ‘ego integrity’ or ‘despair’, he says.
We want to look back over our life thinking ‘Yeah, I did my best,’ or ‘wow, I am proud of that!’ Or might we feel despair about how we spent our life? Let’s avoid that.
Finding Direction For Your Life
Peck advises to decide what the number one most important thing is to you in your life going forwards. Take a moment to decide right now. Grab a pen and paper and you can go through it. Remain present - the answers must come from your true self, not from what you think you should be doing. If you would like the 8 therapeutic journaling prompts to go with this concept head over to the Therapy Toolbox course.
Is this what you want to dedicate your life direction to? Once are clear on that, he suggests we remove all blocks in your life that stand in its way.
Making a commitment to your life’s main priority gives clarity about our choices to make it happen, remove the blocks, and get the support we need.
By setting a direction, it is easier to make decisions, as everything can align towards your destination and that journey. You might have a few turns along the way as circumstances change, and that’s fine.
Setting Intentions
I came across the idea of setting intentions on a meditation retreat many years ago. The teacher asked us what our intention was for that morning’s meditation. I.e., for me, to feel calm, or to understand myself better. It gave me a container for my mindful practice.
Daily Intentions
Then he asked us what is our intention was for the day. Expanding the intention to the whole day enabled me to hone in on what I was doing there more broadly. I wanted to give myself a sense of nurture for that day. This shifted me into a state of nurture in each moment, during lunch, in the evenings, when walking, all day. Having intention to the day gave me something to come ‘home’ to, and see all my actions through the lens of nurture. And I still felt calm too! For the journaling prompts to help set intentions for today and your life head over to the Therapy Toolbox course.
He then asked us, what is our intention for the week? Back then, I wanted to heal. Trauma from the past was still affecting me. The nurture I cultivated was to help me heal. Having a clearer intention gave me a clearer outcome to work towards.
A Life with Intention
He asked at the end, what is your intention for your life? My main intention is for my daughter and I to be healthy and as happy as we can be. Everything else is on top of this.
By writing or acknowledging your intentions, you are empowered to prioritise what matters most. You decide where to put your energy. Everything else can fall away. Of course, your intention and direction might shift over time, so you can review this as you go through life.
Examples of Intentions
For a depressed person or someone with a chronic illness, intention may be simply to get up and get dressed and eat. For someone else, it might be to care for their children as best they can. Another might focus all energy on career, or to take the day to yourself to create. It might be to devote yourself to the service of others, or have as much pleasure and joy as possible (such as Epicureans). Perhaps it is to live with kindness, or to create as much as you can. Whatever it is, it must come from your heart. If you want help with setting intentions, head over to the Therapy Toolbox - a course to help women lead a better life. We look at things that impact our intentions, to connect with our true self, our values, remove our inner critics from running the show, so support for your life of intention is only a step away.
