Create a Life You Love with Intention

Your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs are far more powerful than you can ever imagine. Really: you literally create the reality you live in, and your future, with the thoughts you think, the predominate emotions you carry, and your belief systems.  

You are where you are today because you created it. 

No one is responsible for your reality other than you. You are the one with the power to create a life that you love. If you don’t like where you are today, you can change it with awareness and intention. 

Setting an intention is a powerful tool that tells the universe what you intend to create—and the universe always responds. 

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.” -Gandhi

The following article is part of 10-part series called Back to Basics designed to give folks who want to optimize their health, a starting point for creating radical change in their lives. 

After all, if you don’t learn the basics and create a strong foundation, you’ll limit your potential and miss out on all the amazing benefits that are ahead of you. 

What do I mean by setting intentions? How do you begin?

First, you have to know what you want—and that can be tough because you may not truly know what you want yet. 

I remember being a sophomore in high school and being pressured to pick a career path when I was only 15 years old.  That felt daunting and if I could go back in time, I would tell myself that nothing is set in stone and you can change what you want at any time. The same advice applies with setting intentions.  

Intentions change over time. You don’t have to be perfect on your first attempt. 

Emotions are the magic sauce when it comes to creating a life you love. A great place to start that creation process is to get in touch with the emotions you expect to feel when you have what you want. 

Notice I didn’t say having the thing you want, it’s all about the emotions here. Emotions direct our subconscious by communicating with our brain like a GPS app on your phone. 

By feeling the emotion that you expect to feel when you have what you want, you are selecting your final destination and drawing the future event to you.

After all, what you’re really after is the feeling your dreams give you; the material thing is simply the means to get there. 

Example: Intentionally creating a life with more freedom

  • The dream: A job that pays more, allows you to work from anywhere and create your own hours. 
  • The emotion: you want to enjoy feelings of abundance, freedom, and independence. 
  • Old way: That job may be hard to find. I’ll have to interview many times and I’ll just take the one that sucks the least, or I can tolerate the most. 
  • New way: imagine how you’ll feel and what you’ll do when you have that job. Imagine being the kind of person that has the job that you want… How would that person act, feel, think? What would they say and do? Focus strongly on the emotions and becoming that person. (More on that below…) 

Reinvent what you don’t want. Release what’s unhelpful.

Another way to determine what you want to create is to focus on what you don’t want. You may not be clear on what you do want, but I imagine you know what you no longer want!

  • Maybe you’re unwell so healing may be in order;
  • or you’ve experienced financial hardships and, in that case, you’d want to create abundance, or
  • possibly you’re in a dead in job and you seek freedom. 

Whatever it is that you don’t want, focus on the opposite. Then, go back to the emotions. How would having the opposite of what you don’t want feel? 

Again, emotions are like a compass and will direct you where you want to go. 

Before we move on let’s stop here and take a breather. I get it, this work can feel like heavy lifting if you’re new to this. Maybe this seems a little scary and that’s completely normal.  

Is there a small voice or part of you that thinks it’s not possible, you don’t deserve it, and/or you can’t, have it?  

Before we move on, right down all of your hesitations, doubts, fears, and now, release them. You can do this by burning the paper you wrote them on or by simply saying the statement, “I hereby release the hesitations, fears, and doubts to creating a life that I love.”  

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on!

Create an intention statement

Now that we are clear on what we want and the emotions we expect to feel, it’s time to create an intention statement based on the work we’ve done so far. 

Begin thinking about your life and what parts you’d like to create intentions around. Consider:

  • relationships, 
  • work, 
  • physical body, 
  • health, 
  • spirituality, 
  • mental and emotional, 
  • play, 
  • environment, 
  • creative, 
  • financial, 
  • earth, and 
  • humanity. 

Think about each category and write down what comes up. 

A great way to do this is to sit somewhere quiet, close your eyes, and meditate on the question, “What do I want to create in these areas of my life?” My suggestion would be to start with 2-3 for now and then you can add more later. 

Here’s an example around health: “I intend to create a miraculous healing that allows me to feel freedom, gratitude, joy, and peace in easy, fun, safe and elegant ways. I intend for this healing to manifest in the perfect timing for me with harm to none.”

Notice that there is not much specificity in the statement. That’s deliberate! 

Being specific about what you want to create tells the universe that you know better and limits the outcomes.

There are millions and millions of probable outcomes so why limit yourself?! This is a co-creating process and you will be working with the Universe to create what you want. In order to create a life you love, with intention, it’s best to focus on the emotions and leave the rest up to the universe to create for you.