Living with intention has been a practice of mine ever since I discovered the message of minimalism. I was drawn to the message of living a simple life filled with creating meaningful connections and experiences over chasing material items and frivolous goals.
All intentional living requires is awareness and a conscious effort to design a life unique to your needs and desires. Simply + Fiercely worded it nicely saying that living with intention means “being in constant communication with yourself, deciding what’s working (and what’s not), making small adjustments everyday.”
I’ve been through periods of religiously following the principles of intentional living, and I’ve been through periods where laziness took over. I can confidently say that the former is way more fulfilling.
If you’re interested in adopting a more intentional lifestyle and don’t know where to begin, then here’s three quality practices you can start today:
Craft routines
In Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty, he emphasizes the importance of having routines. Routines can be seen as mundane, restricting our freedom in a sense, however, they actually do the opposite: they offer stability and a room for more creativity.
Routines don’t have to be robotic. Reserving time to do the important things in your day-to-day life is essential to progress in any area of your life. With routines, you save time while getting more things done, which eliminates stress and offers more opportunity for spontaneity.
Set objectives and review them
Emmanuel Acho offered a fresh perspective when it comes to setting objectives instead of goals saying, “when you set a goal and fail, you may begin to question your self-worth and self-esteem. Instead have an objective with no limitations.”
An objective is just “effort in a direction” opposed to a goal being “an end in which energy is aimed.”
Start writing down the things you want to see blossom in your life while also leaving room for endless possibilities to appear. After you do this, review them daily backed up with actions that align with your intentions.
Make time for reflection
Self-reflection is key to observing the progress, or the lack thereof, you’re making in life. If you never take the time to evaluate what’s working and what’s not working in terms of creating a joyful and meaningful life, then you’ll be stuck in the same spot getting the same results.
Answering journal prompts geared towards evaluating your values, objectives, desires, successes, and failures is helpful for self-reflection.
There are many benefits to intentional living, but you won’t know the effects it has until you experiment and see for yourself. So, write these three tips down and see the magic intentional living has. I would love to hear whether these tips helped in the comments below!
For more on intentional living, click here for similar posts. To stay inspired, follow me on Instagram and Tiktok @aaliyahinspired.
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