Being mindful is something that many people can overlook. To break this down further, mindfulness comes from intentionality. It is a way to reconnect with our why so that everything we do on a daily basis has purpose. Rather than coasting through life reactively, we can be mindful of our actions and plan them proactively so our lives can stay within our control and align with our why in a meaningful way. “Go with the flow” is a popular phrase that many people live their life by. While this may be attractive for some because of its ease, all driven people are in the search to live their lives with greater intentionality. This starts with having a strong why and then building a lifestyle of habits and routines around it.
Your why is your foundation
A strong why is the foundation of a driven and successful life. In order to shape the life of your dreams, you must be really clear about what that life looks like. While this may sound silly at first glance, most people don’t have a vivid vision of what they want their lives to look like 5 or 10 years down the line. Their lack of clarity leads them to reactivity and discontentment. Developing a why that empowers and drives you to take action is key. Think about it and write it down in clear and concise detail. List out the important aspects of your life and create a bulleted list. Start with family, health, finances, career, and anything else you may find important and significant you want to include. Write down underneath the top line your vision long term for each of these categories. This should get you fired up and motivate you to take action. This is the beginning of intentionality. We are now on a path to leading a mindful life where our actions are driven towards our desired outcomes and changing how we approach our day to day for good.
Putting intentionality into action
Now that you have your vision, you can shape your actions around it to make it a reality. To do this, we will need to make tiny changes in our daily schedule. These tiny changes will create the habits necessary to produce the results we desire. In our next post, we will talk more about habits and how to create them to serve us and our why. For now, understand that the right actions are about intentionality and that will lead us to be proactive in our lives rather than reactive to the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Making progress mindfully
In 2024 thus far, I’ve made journaling a priority. Each day, I gauge how I’m feeling, write three things I’m grateful for, three achievements of the day, and answer a thoughtful prompt in 2-3 pages of writing. This simple practice has helped me realign with my why daily and get to the core of who I am and what I want in a deeper way than I had ever done before. Journaling allows you to keep track of your thoughts on a daily basis. You can look back on these entries and see how far you’ve come and the progress you’ve made in just a short period of time. It’ll also force you to be honest with yourself about how intentional you are about your actions and if they are aligned with your vision. If you are finding yourself to be more reactive than proactive and getting out of sync with who you want to be, your journal entries will be an easy and obvious way to hold yourself accountable. If you are open and honest when you write them, they will help you analyze yourself in a way that would be impossible otherwise. Keep in mind, we are evolving constantly and our thoughts and opinions will change over time as we gain more experience. Keeping a journal will allow us to reflect on who we were and who we are becoming to see if we’re headed in the trajectory we wish to be. If not, then we can reflect and adjust accordingly. Being aware and mindful is a state that most people simply don’t realize the importance of. When we are constantly reflecting and analyzing ourselves and our actions, it becomes the ultimate accountability tool to make sure we are staying aligned with our why. This process is key to living our day to day in a state of proactiveness where we control our actions and our actions control our outcomes rather than being a victim of circumstance. Are you living your life with intentionality?