Creative Power of Intention

Setting anintention is the first step in manifesting your dreams. When you set anintention, the entire universe aligns with you to create the seeminglyimpossible in your life. It's that powerful! An intention helps clarify whatyou want for your life and helps you focus on the goals you wish to obtain.

Setting an intention is the first step in manifesting your dreams. When you set an intention, the entire universe aligns with you to create the seemingly impossible in your life. It's that powerful! An intention helps clarify what you want for your life and helps you focus on the goals you wish to obtain.

Intention is the overarching umbrella under which you set goals, which you then need to break into steps, those things you need to do to help you achieve your goals. An intention might be to live in a healthy way and take care of your body. Stating this intention helps you focus on goals, which might include spending time exercising, eating a balanced diet, eating with awareness, getting proper sleep, or nurturing your body. To master these goals, begin by choosing one, and then breaking that into steps. For example, you could begin with the goal of nurturing your body. Steps to reach this goal might include taking a daily look into the mirror and telling yourself how worthy you are of good health and well being, or getting a massage once a month.

Intention is the loftier part of ourselves, the part we aspire to. Some intentions are to help other people live a happy life, to live authentically, to live with integrity, to have wealth and abundance, to feel valued and loved, or to live a spiritual-centered life. These are all good intentions, but they in themselves will not do the work of accomplishment. That's where goals come in; however, goals alone are not enough. Goals require right intention for them to have a higher purpose. Intention and goals are symbiotic; they benefit one another.

How do you form an intention, decide what goals to set and what steps to take?

Begin this three-tiered process with the following:

Create Your Intention

1. Spend time alone in nature, meditation, or in a relaxed place where you can brainstorm with yourself. Write down the answer to this question: What do I want most in life? You might answer happiness, to win the lottery, good health, to grow spiritually, or to make the world a better place.
2. Once you have chosen what you want most in life, answer this question: What will my life look like if I live this intention? Write down all the thoughts that come to you, and then refine your thoughts to a manageable sentence or two. For example, your intention might be to be happy, which could mean that you want to be in a loving marriage, live in the country, be in good health, and have an income that comes to you easily and effortlessly.
3. Create a scrapbook of the intentions you have set. Using the above example, your scrapbook might have photos or magazine cutouts of happy couples, a house in a country setting, people exercising or walking in the sunlight, and photos of money or even real money. Daily look at your scrapbook and spend 5 to 10 minutes visualizing and "living" your intention.

Set Your Goals

1. Ask yourself: How can I obtain this? Your intention will lead you into specific goals that you can set for your life. A goal toward a happy life might be to save money to buy a house in the country or to engage in activities where you could meet a potential mate with interests similar to your own.
2. Daily spend a few minutes reviewing and revising your goal. Ask: Does my goal still align with my intention? Do I need to revise my goal or revisit my intention?

Set Steps

1. Break your goal into baby steps. Ask: What is one step I can take today toward reaching my goal? Always keep your intention in mind. With the intention of being happy, and a goal of saving money to buy a house in the country, a step might be to save $1 a day. Certainly you will need to save more than this to buy a house, but once you start taking steps toward your goal, the creative power of your intention will open new doors and create miracles.
2. Keep your steps simple and doable. A lot of baby steps equal a giant step.

Set an intention for your life, which you might decide to work on every day for a year. Your intention will change as you grow and change, but give each intention you set time to work in your life. You might also set an intention each day that aligns with your life's intention. For example, your life intention might be to be happy. This can also be a daily intention, or you can choose a different intention for each day, such as to live in integrity today or to live today in the present moment, both of which bring happiness.

Be cautious about working with more than one intention at the same time unless they dovetail, such as the intention to live in the present moment and in grace and gratitude, or the example in the paragraph above. Working with too many intentions causes confusion in your mind, and if you're confused you are sending mixed messages to the universe. The same holds true for goals and steps. Setting too many at once overwhelms you into nonmovement.

By daily visiting, reviewing and revising your intention, by daily setting or resetting an intention for your life and an intention for that day, you will begin to see the changes you once only dreamed about. Living with intention is using a creative and powerful force to manifest the best for your life and your family, and also for the world.

Diana Rankin, is the author of The Happiness Book, 23 Days/A Celtic Journey, and The Found Child, which can be purchased at http://www.spiritualseekersnetwork.com. Diana is a gifted psychic medium, international speaker, and workshop and guided meditation leader. For a private reading by phone or in person, for information on workshop, seminars, or speaking to your group, or to order one of her books or CD meditations, please contact Diana at http://www.dianarankin.com.
© 2009 Diana Rankin