I wrote in May in a post called “State Your Intention” of a
meditation that helps to establish an intention and put it to use in working
toward your goals. Framing a positive
and present intention can help us stay to directed and achieve what we want. Intention can be a guide as we work to become
the person we want to become. Make
sense? Well, not so fast.
The idea behind mindfulness is the nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment. If I want to lose
weight and set the intention that “I am healthy,” I may be fooling myself and
not accepting my present reality. I may
also be fooling myself into thinking that I am, today, healthy. I may not be healthy at all, right now. I surely don’t want to encode my meditations
with denial. To do so would be mere
imaging, not mindfulness. Imaging
certainly has a place in achievement, but it can also deny us the truth and
awareness of the present moment.
To avoid falling into this trap, an intention must be seen
as an outcome, a process, and not necessarily true yet. Perhaps an intention is better thought of as
an unfolding. Not yet “I am healthy,”
but instead “becoming healthy.” Meditating
on an intention can help us discover ways and resources to meet our goals, but
it must not replace true mindfulness. We
have to remain honest about our experience and our capabilities in the present
moment. Only then can we set about the
work to overcome obstacles or to achieve a goal.
Note also that “I am” should not be part of your
intention. Stating with too much
certainty that we are something that we actually aren’t yet can make us less
likely to succeed in making our intentions, and goals, reality. A study by Peter Gollwitzer at NYU indicates
that by publicly stating our intentions we may severely limit our effort. He found that people who told others about
their goals were less likely to work hard toward them than were people who kept
their goals to themselves. Publicly
declaring intentions makes them seem fulfilled already, and we can sit back and
ignore the hard work required to succeed.
Privately telling ourselves “I am” can have the same effect.
Finally, intentions may be limiting in another way. We may actually underestimate ourselves and
accept less than we are capable of. A
general intention may be more helpful than a goal that is too specific. “Becoming healthy” trumps “I will lose ten
pounds,” because I may be able to lose fifteen with just a little more effort. Goals are important guideposts, not endpoints. Fitness trainer Mark Twight points out that
you can always do more than you think so announcing your intentions can be
self-limiting. He also makes the case
that declaring intent is not execution.
So why bother setting an intention at all? We need goals to work toward, and we need a
sense of what values and motives drive us.
By determining a strong intention we can discover what helps us succeed,
and what may be holding us back. The
point is to be modest, committed, and adaptive.
I believe strongly that the meditation detailed in my “State Your Intention” post can help.
For example, lately I have been bothered by distractions and
my tendency to not stick to things that I begin. I can’t seem to follow through on a good
idea. I went through the intention
meditation and set some goals such as “be more consistent” and “practice
self-discipline.” Yes, these are very
broad, but I continued the exercise and discovered the two-word phrase “choose,
focus.” This has become the intention on
which I meditate. It’s also not a bad
benchmark to check my actions against.
Bringing it to mind does not fool me into thinking I have achieved
something that I haven’t yet, and it is positive, open, and not at all
self-limiting. I can live with it, and
think that I am be better off if I do.
Intentions are determinate, powerful things. While care is advisable as you practice the
process, the intention meditation can yield tremendous insight and influence
into one’s actions. Just stay open, keep
quiet about it, and commit.
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