149 | Goals & Intentions

GOALS & INTENTIONS || One thing I finally came to terms with in 2022 is that I’m not a goals person. I can write a SMART goal with the best of them. I understand the importance of each of those components (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timebound). The problem is a SMART goal doesn’t actually motivate me. It often has the opposite effect. Within days of claiming a goal, I start to feel resistance to it...even if taking that action will lead me to something that I purportedly want.

As I was talking about this with my spiritual director, Dan, earlier this year, I realized that my resistance was less about the goal and more about how I was writing it. Framing it as a SMART goal made it feel more like a duty or obligation, something put upon me rather than something I chose. In that conversation, Dan encouraged me to ask myself, “How do I want to spend my time? What do I want?”

With that lens, I returned to my written goals and asked “What is the deeper desire behind these goals?” I came up with four statements that named my intentions and a clarifying question for each:

1) I want to live outside the pressure of looming deadlines. I want to replace persistent anxiousness and dread with calm confidence. (What are my best practices to do this?)

2) I want to adhere to my own markers for health & well-being and live into them with a spirit of fun and desire. (What are those markers?)

3) I want our home to be a place of relaxed order and welcome for ourselves and others. (What would make this easier?)

4) In whatever I do, I want to show up and be who I am, taking up space, fully embodied. (What does this look like in my different roles?)

Capturing the picture of how I want to be and live and then focusing on the habits that build that reality shifted my mindset from one of duty and obligation to choice, possibility, and watching for progress. It has been so freeing for me and consequently motivates me to bring my intentions to life.

The truth is, there’s no one right way between goals and intentions; it’s only a matter of figuring out what speaks to and motivates you to build the life you want.

✨What motivates you more–goals or intentions? Why?