My recent life upheaval not only came along with physical changes (relocating to Europe), time changes (full-time caregiver), but also some philosophy changes. I knew I needed to do things differently in my life if I didn’t want to end up in the same spot. While, the beautiful Portugal sun can fix approximately 87% of my problems, I’ve still got a few to figure out on my own. Namely, how do I not get myself back into this deep burnout situation again. (If you missed that story, catch up in My Signs of Burnout post). So, that brings me to what I’m calling intentional living.
What is Intentional Living?
Intentional living is taking action each day that is purposefully and mindfully aligned to your values. It’s taking back the wheel of your life rather than passively allowing inertia to choose your destination or how you get there. At multiple points in my life I’ve either woken up one day shocked to find I’d gotten to a place I never intended to be. Or even worse, I knew the entire time that I wasn’t living the life I wanted, but I didn’t know how to get out of my own way. Intentional living is a way to take back ownership of your life.
Intentional living has four components: 1) be mindful, 2) reflect, 3) adapt when needed, 4) act with purpose. It’s the balance of each of these pieces that’s really key. Mindfulness allows you to be observant, present, and aware of your actions, thoughts, environment, and life. Reflection connects the dots on if you’re living in alignment with your values. Then from there, you can adapt, adjust course, or transform your path all together. Finally, acting with purpose allows you to lean in, define what you want in your life, and take steps to create the life you dream of. If this sounds complicated or time consuming, I promise it isn’t! I’ll dig into this more below along with an easy example of how this can work with daily life.
Be Mindful
Psychology Today defines mindfulness as “Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention to the present. This state is described as observing one’s thoughts and feelings without judging them as good or bad.” Awareness, openness, and lack of judgment are all key to mindfulness. I’ll use drinking coffee as an example throughout to show you how simple this can be. In this case mindfulness could look like being aware that you’re pouring a cup of coffee. That’s it! No inner critic creeping in. Nothing complicated more complicated than acknowledging your present action.
Reflect
Next, you reflect. Reflection is when you can start to get into feelings, thoughts, and assessing your observations compared to your values. Getting back to coffee, it can look like “I love drinking a steaming hot cup of coffee every morning. I look forward to it” or it could be “I am feeling a little jittery and the caffeine is making me anxious.” Both are perfectly valid and can guide you through the next step.
If you’re having a hard time reflecting on what you observe, sometimes it’s easier to get out of your head and into your body. Does your body tense when you reflect on an observation? Do you have butterflies in your stomach? Does a smile cross your face? Our bodies house so much wisdom and sometimes it’s easier to listen to how our body responds and reflect from there. Is your body telling you that this is no longer serving you? Is your body telling you that you’re excited about this? Don’t over think it and get trapped in analysis paralysis. (I tell myself this daily!)
Adapt
Now it’s time to use your reflections to guide your actions and adapt or course correct if necessary. Sometimes no changes need to be made, but often I find in most situations we can even subtly lean in or pull back to build more fulfilling lives. Back to the coffee example, if you love your steaming cup of coffee, you could adapt by protecting 15 minutes each morning to savor your latte. If you are feeling the jitters, you could adapt by putting the cup of coffee down and grabbing sparkling water instead. Easy peasy!
When you’re in this step, there are three possible outcomes: 1) stay the course – you’re doing exactly what you want to be doing, 2) change your actions to align to your values, or 3) change your values. Sometimes in life we get to a point where we see that our values no longer serve us. Maybe we have adopted values from society, family, or religion and you’ve realized it’s not for you. It’s also possible that values that have served you well up to this point no longer fit into your life. You have permission: change your values!
Act with Purpose
You’ve been mindful, reflective, and adapted, now it’s time to get out of your head and act! Acting with purpose is simple – it’s taking action that is aligned to your individually defined values. These aren’t necessarily the huge life-changing moments, it’s the small actions that make up every aspect of your day that shape your life. So now, you’re either carving out your coffee time or making different drink choices. It’s as easy as that! This virtuous cycle can be repeated for any aspect of your life. It also gives you the confidence that you are living the life you’ve defined for yourself.
Note: I’ve talked a lot about values. Unpacking how to define your values would be a lengthy post unto itself. For now, even just completing this cycle can help you start to understand what you value.
TL;DR: Intentionally Drinking Coffee
- Be Mindful: I am drinking coffee
- Reflect: I love drinking a steaming cup of coffee.
- Adapt: I want to set aside time to actually enjoy my favorite latte.
- Act with Purpose: Every morning I spend 15-minutes away from the hustle and bustle to savor my coffee.
Truly, that’s it. That’s intentional living. This gives you the tools to get back into the driver’s seat and intentionally shape the life of your dreams.
I’d love to hear from you! Does this resonate with you? How do you want to integrate intentional living?
P.S. The first installment of the weekly newsletter “In Search of Nourishment” goes out this Friday! To make sure you don’t miss out make sure you Subscribe.
