Goals: Creating Intention
Cassie Schuster, CTN, ND, MH
Late in December a really grand idea started brewing in my head. Mechanical pencil in hand, I chose a fresh spiral notebook and scribbled furiously for days, writing in the margins, upside down, noting jaunty phrases and other assorted food for thought. It was really fun and exhilarating to be creating a brand new instructive resource for the equine baby boomer and I just knew that it would be a big hit when I went public with it!
Wait a minute – I’m still writing, and rewriting, and editing, and changing, and what’s this?…doubting. Taking a step back I looked at the mound of concepts and visions that were multiplying during the wee hours of the night. What a mosh pit of thoughts! How do I get from “wishing” and “wanting” to “doing” and “living it”? “Not to worry grasshopper”, said the modest voice in the silent auditorium of my brain, “stop, and go back to the concept of creating intention for your grand design”.
You and I probably did the same thing back in December: in the excitement of moving into a new year we vowed to make changes – let go of this, add that, do more of this, do less of that – and now it’s one big jumble of ideas that has no beginning or ending. Or so it seems. My New Year’s resolution started out with wanting to have a realistic goal that I could actually achieve. It just grew from there, excitement and all.
Before we move on, it’s important to define the difference between a wish and a goal. A wish is as simple as, “I wish I could compete in a dressage event this summer”. A goal is, “I want to compete and place first in the Bluebird class in Hunter Pace at Pine Hill this summer, there are three things I have to accomplish before May and those things are…”. Hear the difference? Good, let’s move onto the good stuff.
This is where the creating intention part comes in. Grab a piece of paper and a pen and work with me. Now use the goal of placing first in the Bluebird class of Hunter Pace you just fleshed out of a former “wish” or use your own goal and apply these questions to it:
a.) Do you intend for it to serve you physically, as in getting into better shape to improve your time?
b.) Do you intend for it to serve you mentally, as in staying sharp and focused, free of distractions, visualizing the course?
c.) Do you intend for it to serve you socially, as in making new friends or just staying in the loop with your peers?
d.) Do you intend for it to serve you spiritually, as in mastering a goal after recovering from an injury or setback?
Now you have taken a huge goal (“I want to compete and place first in the Bluebird class in Hunter Pace at Pine Hill this summer”) and identified the reasons, or intentions, behind that goal. Each one of those four areas deserves their own time and space to mature and become visible as a goal you can attain. This is a huge, huge step for the brain to take because each of the four areas requires different methods to achieve them. If you kept it all lumped into one goal without being clear on why it was so important to you, you would soon question your focus, become a bit annoyed, and eventually lose sight of how much you actually achieved during the process of going from goal/intention to hunter pace/personal success.
English please? Go back to creating intention. If you joined me in this exercise, you have now written a goal: you have identified the reason it feels so compelling to achieve it (physical, mental, social, or spiritual); you are now mentally ready to take the next step and OWN it.
Let’s say you have the intention of placing first in Bluebird class of Hunter Pace because you are a rider over 50 who no longer cares so much about speed, instead you care more about form and mental accuracy in working as a partner with your horse. Your preparation will look a lot different from the rider whose compelling intention is physical! But Cassie, don’t they all four work together? Yes they do – but the brain wants, no it NEEDS you to be clear and concise so you can work as a team and claim success. Maybe your goal will include more than one of those four ‘reasons’, and that’s okay but not necessary – just start simple.
Creating intention – the “what” am I wanting, “why” do I want it so badly, and the “how” am I going to get it. It defines your thoughts. It makes order out of spiral notebooks of scribbled ideas. Intention allows form, and form allows clarity, and clarity allows the mind to relax and let the things we know so well to flow without effort and without resistance.
You can create your intentions anywhere and at anytime, but at our next session I’m going to chat with you about the use of creating a very special space and how it can have a huge affect on the outcomes of your goals. Oh, and that instructive resource for the equine baby boomer I started back in December? Well it will soon unfold in all its glory…with focus and clarity and purpose. The grasshopper learns well!
