The Cure for Feeling Lost: Intention Setting 101

Do you feel lost?

Do you feel like you're wandering aimlessly through life, looking for something to be passionate about? A job, a relationship, a hobby, anything?

We all go through it. Even if you're not there right now, you'll likely cycle around to this lost feeling again sometime in the future. And it’s natural.

Even if we generally know what we want in life, sometimes we don't get specific enough to really reign in that passionate, driven energy.

Today, I want to coach you on how to get un-lost by harnessing the power of intention so that you can ignite that fire again at will. And if you wish that you generally had more passion in your life, this post can help you achieve that, too.

The 101 on Intention Setting

If you feel lost, set your intention on something good that you have or want in your life.

By focusing on what you want more of in your life, every action you take will be affected by that focus, which in turn will begin to create a shift in your life. (For the better)

Imagine if you began focusing your intention on gratitude every day. If you went into work, and instead of focusing on how bored you are, how annoying your boss is, or what else you could be doing, you honed in on what you were grateful for that this job creates.

• I am grateful that I am able to pay my rent because of this job.
• I am grateful for the chance to interact with my coworkers who have become my friends every day.
• I am grateful for the fulfillment I get from being able to help people in my job every day.

Imagine how that intention (to focus on gratitude throughout your day) could change your entire life; if your head was full of gratitude and acceptance instead of resistance and angst!

You would be happier every single day. You would look for reasons to be grateful, which would make every part of your life more satisfying. Instead of drowning in discontent, you seek the light.

One of my lovely participants in my course to heal the relationship with food and body image posted a link in our Facebook group to an article about overcoming obstacles. Chad Kellogg, a speed record-breaker on Denali and Mt. Rainier, was quoted within the article as saying:

“The story you tell yourself becomes your reality.”

When we focus on the negatives, dwelling on what we hate about ourselves or our lives, complaining without seeking to remedy the situation, or chiming in on nasty gossip to feel more included by excluding others, we create a story of chaos, and it almost always leads to pessimistic snowballing. This can’t create anything good for us as happy, present, loving human beings, and it sure as hell isn’t the kind of intention that promotes a bright future.

It’s when we land in this space that we often start feeling lost. All the things we find ourselves holding onto are exactly those that we should be letting go of.

Learning to let it go, and concentrating your intention on constructive ends instead, is your cure for finding your way again.

I don’t care who you are or how negative you are right now. You were not born that way. You are not doomed to a black-cloud-state of being for the rest of your life.

You are destined to a purposeful, fulfilled life and to love and be loved throughout all of it. Make space in your life to create that state of being.

Stop fighting for your excuses, arguments, anger, regret, frustration, jealousy and sadness. What purpose are those emotions and excuses serving? How are they helping you lead a better life? What are you doing to move forward from them?

All you have to do is let go, and pick up a new practice to replace it with.

What To Focus Your Intentions On

There are a couple of different focuses on which to set your intention, and they fit into two categories.

A State of Being or Quality of Life

Examples:

• Gratitude
• Love
• Peace
• Strength

A Goal

Examples:

• To inspire healthy choices in your children.
• To write a book.
• To run a marathon in under 4 1/2 hours.
• To give love in every situation.

No matter what category you choose to pull from (it might be both!), you will get a greater benefit from focusing on one at a time at first. As you practice and become better able to re-focus on your intention at will, you can add in individual intentions for different parts of your day.

Setting Your Intention

Setting an intention that permeates throughout your life is easy. Choosing an intention that drives you toward your core values is the tricky part.

Like finding a mantra, setting an intention should be drawn from the parts of your life that matter the most to you. If it’s your children, base your intention in them and their futures. If it’s your core desired feeling of adventure, base it in that.

Whatever it is, just thinking about a life full of it or having accomplished it should make you immediately emotional in a positive way.

What state of being, quality of life or goal strikes a chord deep in your rib cage?

What punches you in the stomach with a fistful of butterflies just when you think about it?

What makes you laugh out loud with tears in your eyes just to consider its possibility?

These are the intentions worth setting, because these are the intentions that will drive you through the walls that will inevitably stand in your way.

Intention in Practice

Now that you’ve set your intention to begin with, it’s time to put it into practice. Don’t worry- you don’t need to sit around an intention fire doing yoga while ringing finger bells and chanting to start creating your intention as your reality. Start with letting your intention inform your choices.

Before making any decisions, big or small, ask yourself: Is this in line with my intention?

It helps to write down your intention in places that you will see it often. I make cell phone wallpapers for my coaching clients so that every time they pull out their phone, they are reminded of their intentions.

Other ideas for reminder sprinkling is to put post its on your mirror (especially great if you are working on confidence and self-love intentions), on your desktop at work, or in your wallet.

Situational Intentions

After you’ve practiced the above enough to feel like it’s second-nature, try setting situational intentions. This is where we can get really specific, and our true strength and power is unleashed!

When we set intentions for certain situations that we know will be trying, we become purposeful in our strengthening through struggle. The pain becomes a means to an end, instead of simply, "The End."

As you do this more and more, challenges become more enticing, which leads us to expand within our lives in ways we couldn't have imagined. After all, it is only through pushing our limits that we can achieve change.

Here are a couple key situations in which to start setting intentions.

WORKOUTS

You guessed it! I set an intention for nearly every workout I do, and it helps drive me harder and through the parts where I would have quit previously in my story. Doing so has allowed me to become stronger, boost my endurance, and get into the best physical shape I’ve ever been in.

Here’s how to do it: determine what kind of workout you’re going into, and let that inform the intention that you set. If you’re planning to do a tough HIIT workout, you might want to set your intention on something that will keep you going like, “I will become stronger than I was before this workout,” or “I will show myself what I am capable of.” If you’re doing yoga or a long easy run, you might want to focus on something more stress-relieving such as, “Release,” or “Clarity.”

Make sure that your intention includes to honor your body's needs. This is very important in building trust with your body and keeping yourself from injury or burn out.

By setting these intentions, you refuse to let yourself stop your workout until your intention is fulfilled. If my intention is to become stronger than I was before the workout, you best believe I’m not going to grab the baby kettlebells or “take it easy on myself” for my jump rope intervals. I will PUSH because it is my intention, and it matters to me.

It is my purpose.

Like mantras, you can simply repeat short phrases in your head that pull you back into your intention, or you can subtly remind yourself if you find that your mind starts to wander into the “lost” zone of negativity.

WORK

Whether you love your job or you’re not such a big fan, setting intentions at work will make you more productive and allow you to have more fun while you’re there.

You can set intentions in the form of tasks to accomplish for the day (example: I will finish X, Y & Z by the time I clock out), just make sure to write these down first thing when you get to your desk so that you can cross them off as you go and keep yourself on track.

You can also set intentions in the form of a focus (example: Encouragement & Support, meaning you would seek opportunities to be as encouraging and supportive as possible to those around you while at work), in which you would let your intention inform the way you act and react around your coworkers, very much like you learned how to do in your beginner intention practice.

*****

With practice, intention setting creates a more purposeful, mindful and rewarding way of life. Feeling lost loses much of its threatening power, and finding yourself reveals itself as a clear process, rather than an ethereal concept as it was before.

Your purpose is what you make it, and you can find it at any moment. The world will be a better place for having your intentions driving it forward.

Stay strong,

Amy