It was spring and the promise of warmer weather made me smile. In contrast, the tall buildings of the downtown that housed my office seemed stark and cold. An hour later than my normal 9:00 am start of my business day, I was struggling to find an answer to an as yet unasked question. I wondered, would it really make any difference to the world if I didn’t show up today? What if I died? Would anyone really miss me after the shock wore off? And then the big question landed. What am I even doing here?

In the midst of the struggle a moment of complete calm arose. No thoughts at all. Total peace. From the depths of I don’t know where, came the question, What is my intention? In an instant I realized I had no intention. I was mechanically following day after day what I had followed the days, weeks, months and years before. I was going through life robotically with no real sense of what this was all about.

That was a moment of awakening. I vowed to no longer live aimlessly. I vowed to no longer live the life that was expected of me. I vowed to no longer live without an intention that was truly meaningful. On that day, in fact in that moment, the course of the rest of my live shifted radically. I had discovered the power of living with intention. I made a commitment to myself and made it my personal mission to live every day with intention from that moment forward.

What exactly is living with intention? Living with intention is the difference between a life lived aimlessly rolling from one cycle of activity and emotion to the next and living in the joy of being focused and on purpose with your conscious purpose for being. The difference between those two poles is massive. Deepak Chopra writes, “Intent is a seed in consciousness, or spirit. If you pay attention to it, it has within it the means for its own fulfillment. Intention’s infinite organizing power orchestrates countless details simultaneously.”  If you find you’re sabotaging yourself. If you are getting bogged down in indecision, spinning your wheels, you may well be living without intention.

Living with intention is not the notion of seeking what you want, or think you need. It’s not based on getting. There is a part of the mind that would say ‘What’s in it for me? How can I get more? I want a BMW in my driveway next Thursday and a swimming pool in the back yard next Monday.’ All of that is what most spiritual teachers call the false self—the ego. And the ego fills your head with chants of ‘I want, I need, give me more, more, more’ all day long.

Living with intention is not about what you can get. Living with intention is about what you can give. It’s about embracing a heightened level of consciousness. Living with intention is not attracting what you want, but attracting what you are!

Over the years of living with intention I realized that intention, unlike a Christmas wish is multidimensional. There is the over-arching intention that guides your life. Then there is the moment-by-moment intentions that help you manifest into action that larger intention along the way.

Without action, living with intention is simply a concept. How may I serve in this moment? What might I offer in this moment? How could I be in this moment? And what wisdom guided action can I take to be fully living with intention?

Living with intention invites you to just be. You have to let go. You have to allow. You have to choose this as your consciousness. Living with intention is a frequency a vibration that manifests itself through the process of giving, of allowing, of offering and of serving. It asks nothing back. And what you get in return is the incomparable gift of your Self.

If living with intention resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. We’d be happy to chat with you about how you can live with intention in your life. When you’re ready to really life all of life reach out. We’re here to show you how.