How to Create Intentions that Serve You and Your Business
Do you ever end the day and think WTF did I even do all day? Maybe you feel like you did a lot of stuff but it just doesn’t feel like you did anything to move the needle in your business. That feeling has to do with a lack of intention in your life and in your business.
As I’ve started and focused on growing my coaching business I’ve had to take a lot of time to think about my intentions as a business owner. It’s so easy for me to get caught up in the day to day of my digital marketing agency that a lot of the time, I don’t focus on my coaching business as much as I want to. That signals a lack of intention setting.
Staying focused on your intentions is hard, but it can mean the difference between reaching your goals or not. It is so important to think about and get clear on what your intention is. When you’re super clear on your intentions for your business, and your life, it’s much easier to decide what activities will serve those intentions and which activities won’t.
For example, I know that I want to build a business that I love working on every day, that let’s me feel creative and energized and that allows me to pay myself over 6-figures while working 20-25 hours per week.
So, when I have an idea for a new product or service or when someone asks me to do something, I ask myself if that thing will serve the intention I have for my life and my business. Taking time to think about your why and set intentions for your life and your business is important, but how can you make sure you’re focusing on your intentions every day?
By picturing your intentions every day, you can then make more focused daily intentions to ensure the work you are doing is moving you towards your goals. Some people find it helpful to journal or say affirmations each morning to help guide or remind them of their intentions.
One helpful tip here is to think, talk, and write as if you have lived up to your intentions and you have already accomplished your goal.
How will future-you spend her time? What would she focus on today?
Would she spend 2 hours on the couch mindlessly scrolling through IG? Or would she be creating kickass content about her journey and her business to share on IG?
Thinking from a place of it’s already happened / I’m already there helps you stay true to your intentions.
One thing I had to come to terms with being intentional was the fact that I don’t have a morning routine.... I know having a morning routine is really trendy and popular but I haven’t really had one since leaving my 9-5 in 2018. I used to tell myself that was because I craved freedom and flexibility. I wanted to wake up when I wanted and start working when I wanted.
But as I’ve scaled my business and started my coaching business, I realized that adding more structure and more routine into my day would actually help me to be more flexible in the areas of my life that really count.
To do this, I recently started time blocking my day. At first, I thought I would hate it. I like to be able to just sit down at the beginning of my day (whatever time that happens to be) and look at ClickUp and decide what I wanted to work on.
But, I noticed that there were some things that were consistently NOT getting done. Now that I’ve been time blocking each day, I have blocks for all of the important things like content creation, lead generation, client communication, and client work. And it’s amazing how much more productive and on-point I already feel. All the important stuff is still getting done, because it has to. But the other things that were so easy to push off indefinitely are getting done now too.
By sitting down to think about how I would time block my day, what I would focus on and how long I should spend on it, and then actually adding those time blocks to my calendar, I’m able to focus on the things that MUST get done and the things that are MOST important to moving my businesses forward.
If you crave freedom and flexibility, I challenge you to be more intentional with your time and try time blocking. You might find it gives you more freedom than you could have hoped for.
Even if we do the same things every day, and we never stop to reflect on if what we’re doing is ACTUALLY working for us and moving us toward our goals. That’s why it’s so important to take time to reflect and review. There are a ton of different ways to reflect and review and it’s always a good time to take a few minutes to look back at the last day/week/month and think about how it went:
Review your time tracking reports in Toggl to see where you’re spending most of your time. Is that what you should be spending your time on? Is that something you can outsource or systematize to save you time?
Journal and reflect on your recent wins, your recent struggles and how you’ve been feeling recently.
Take a look at your to-do list to see if your priorities have shifted and if you need to make adjustments.
Look at your analytics for your marketing and sales strategies to identify any areas for potential improvement.
The point is, being intentional isn’t just about planning for the future, it’s also about reflecting on the past to make sure you are living your life as your future-self. That you’re spending your time as future you would spend her time. And that you’re paying attention to the things you would actually care about once you’ve accomplished your goals.
If you don’t take time to reflect, how will you know your intentionality is working?
