I am determined to live this year intentionally.

Intention: \in-ˈten(t)-shən\ an anticipated outcome that guides one’s planned actions.

Being intentional is about living in a deliberate, conscious way, according to your values and what you hold sacred. It requires daily reflection, and inspired goals to move you toward who you want to be.

This week I’ll be discussing how to plan for an intentional life. Yes, unfortunately, we’ve all heard the adage, “failing to plan is a plan to fail.” To live intentionally, there’s no doubt that planning is required. So, in the next week I’ll touch on the following topics:

• Identify what’s sacred and what that looks and feels like
• Setting intentions to have more of what’s sacred in your life
• Discovering your daily rhythm
• Defining SMARTER goals and allowing inspired action to unfold
• The importance of self-acknowledgement
• The power of gratitude

Until next time, to get you started, you may want to learn about the emotional shift to what’s sacred.

I appreciate you taking the time to visit again! Please add to the discussion by adding a comment, and subscribe to Sacred Expressive to ensure you receive the latest updates.

To live intentionally, we have to FEEL what matters most to us. So often, the busyness of life takes over and we spend our days just trying to keep up with our to-do lists. We also typically end up feeling guilty when we think about all the things we should or shouldn’t be doing. Are you tired of living this way? I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this, you are.

The first thing I want you to do is STOP. Take several deep breaths. Okay, now take out a blank sheet of paper and do the following:

1. Think about your ideal life, if the sky was the limit. Where would you be? Who would you be with? What kind of work would you be doing? As you think about your ideal life, really notice how your body feels. Do you feel warmth around your heart? If so, you’re on the right track. Write down all of this on your sheet of paper.
2. Okay. Now I want you to read the following question, then close your eyes and sit with it until the response you feel in your body matches the one you felt when you described your ideal life. What is sacred to you? What needs to be present in your life for you to feel whole (it may not be present now, and that’s okay).

As you look at your list of what’s sacred to you, take an inventory of your life as it is right now. Is your current way of life honoring what’s most sacred to you? If you feel any guilt about the way you’ve been operating in life, is that guilt in any way tied to you not honoring what’s most sacred to you?

I’ve found that what’s most sacred to me has everything to do with relationships. Relationship with self, my loved ones, friends, my business, my clients, my money. I’ve also noticed that what I hold most sacred are people, things, and thoughts that feel positive and warm. What I hold sacred is that which I appreciate. In terms of material things, what I hold sacred almost always symbolizes one of my sacred relationships.

What do you find interesting about that which you hold sacred? I’d love to hear your comments down below, or even on Twitter.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about setting intentions to have more of what’s sacred in your life.

If you’ve done Step 1, you determined what’s sacred for you. If you’d like to live a more conscious and intentional life, honoring what’s sacred for you, here’s what you can do.

1. Take your list of what’s sacred. On another sheet of paper, write down each statement and leave some space in between. For each statement, think about the kind of person you have to be in order to honor yourself. Ask yourself, “In order for me to really (insert sacred statement), what would my actions look like? What kind of person would I have to be in order to truly live this? When I think about these actions or qualities, do I feel warmth in my heart?” Your responses to these questions are your intentions.
2. When you’re done with your lists, read over each intention, close your eyes and sit with it for a minute. Does this intention pull you forward? Does it feel positive and make you feel warm inside? If you answered yes to both questions you’re on the right track.  If, however, your mind starts chattering and reasoning with you, something might be amiss. If, instead of pulling you forward, the statement causes walls to form or makes you come to a screeching halt, you may want to examine why. Is it an expectation set by someone else that you think you “should” do or be but deep down don’t really believe it’s right for you? Really think it through and determine if this truly supports your desire to honor what’s sacred.

You may discover that what is on your list is vastly different than the way you’ve been living your life. It’s okay, because you’re now aware of the way you truly want to be.

Keep this list of intentions in a place where you will see it often. For a while, you will likely need to remind yourself frequently what matters most to you. As you go through your day and you find yourself questioning whether to do something, ask yourself, “Is this in alignment with what’s sacred to me?”

I’ve found in my own life that by honoring what’s sacred, I move at a slower, more comfortable pace. It’s easier to say no, it’s easier to be patient, and it’s so much easier to be present and in the moment.  It’s easier to declutter and get rid of things that aren’t sacred to me either. My actions are more deliberate because I’m consciously checking in to see how my body feels rather than what mind is thinking. I can actually be more productive because I’m not reasoning my way through my day. I’m truly feeling my way through.

Connecting an action through the heart ensures that what you’re doing is for the highest good — yours and others. Living deliberately and intentionally requires that you make a shift that is more heart-centered.

So, I encourage you to define what’s sacred to you. See if you find that this is a good compass to guide you through your day.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look discovering your daily rhythm.

We all have a rhythm of energy that fluctuates throughout the day. For example, would you consider yourself a morning person or a night owl? Is there a time of day when you are really productive? Are there other times of day when all you want to do is take a nap?

There are even seasonal rhythms of energy. I consider the start of a new school year to be my time to start fresh with new goals and intentions, even more so than the start of the calendar year. Spring is usually a crazy time of year because both kids play sports and have busy schedules (the things we do for our kids!), that by the time summer arrives, I’m ready to be dormant for a while and take a nice break, mentally and physically.

Over the years I’ve experimented with many different methods of time management. The problem with most of them for me was that other people’s formulas of when to do things and what activities to do just didn’t work for me.

At one point, I found Julie Morgenstern’s book, “‘Time Management from the Inside Out” to be very helpful. She had an exercise to help identify one’s own energy cycles. Simply fill in the blanks to these statements:

• Mornings are the best time for me to ______________________, and the worst time for me to______________________.
• Afternoons are the best time for me to ______________________, and the worst time for me to______________________.
• Evenings are the best time for me to ______________________, and the worst time for me to______________________.
• Late at night is the best time for me to ______________________, and the worst time for me to______________________.

I discovered that an awareness of my high and low energy points of the day could give me a better clue about what activities to do and when, based on my capacity to concentrate and how much time I had available to do things. I also realized how my energy fluctuates throughout the year based on when my kids are in school and the activities they’re doing.

A few months ago, I found a great time management resource with free planning pages on the Productive Flourishing blog, and an exercise called Heatmapping your Productivity. You print out this circular “map” with 24 pie pieces, and each piece represents one hour. Based on the directions in the article, you fill in each piece with a certain color after you’ve determined the “productivity capacity” for that hour. When you’re done, you end up with a visual illustration of “the amount of productivity that you’re capable of in a given amount of time”.

Note that this capacity is directly related to your daily rhythm and the amount of mental and physical energy you have to be really productive. Once you do this exercise, compare your answers to the fill-in-the-blank section above. Now, think about how you’re currently spending your time every day. Are there small adjustments you can make in your day to work with your unique rhythm?

One of the best changes I recently made happened after I realized that one of the reasons why I hated cooking dinner was because dinner preparation would occur at precisely my very WORST time of day. My energy is at its lowest from about 5:30-7:30pm. In contrast, between 7:00-8:00 am or 1:00-2:00 pm are times of day when I’m either ramping up my energy or in between lunch and getting ready to pick up the kids. I’m not in full-on work mode at these times.

Once I started making dinner or prepping most of it in the morning or the middle of the day, dinner no longer was a chore. My husband often helps get the rest of dinner together in the evenings now, so sometimes I don’t have to do anything to help get the meal on the table. This minor change, by working with my natural rhythm, has helped my family to curb our excursions out to eat, saving us money and time, and I’m a much more pleasant person to be around in the evening!

With respect to my work, I know that morning classes are easier for me to teach, mid to late morning is when I can write, and late evening after the kids go to bed is really the best time to catch up on email and social media (still working on not getting distracted during the day by these activities!).

As far as seasonal rhythms go, I pretty much know I can’t take on major projects during the summer or from mid-November through early January because of my kids’ school schedules, holidays, and birthdays. My family time is important, and honestly, their energy mixed with mine in the same house scrambles my brain, and I take about 50 times longer to get big things done.

I encourage you to take a look at your energy patterns, both daily and seasonally, to discover your natural, unique rhythmn. By doing these exercises, you may find ways to free up more time and energy, yet get more done! Awareness is priceless!