Setting Healthy Intentions

After a long break, or time off from your daily routines, it can be helpful to set some health intentions for the week.  This exercise can help clear your mind of worries, stress, and help to organize your thoughts.  Setting an intention is not a passive process and requires a lot of active thought and practice.  While it may not seems like much, constantly reminding yourself of your intentions and goals will help you to reach a more balanced state of mind. To begin, find a quiet place and concentrate on your breathing.  Take deep, full breaths and visualize letting go of all your troubles, the stress, any anxiousness, or negative self-talk.  Let these thoughts drift further away with each passing breath, until you feel your body relax.  Now, with a calm clear mind practice any or all of the following 10 suggestions, get specific with what you want, and let go of the rest. 

1) Create a mantra -  Tune our your negative thoughts and create a positive mantra to repeat to yourself throughout the day.  Research shows that it is best to repeat your mantra to yourself in the morning as this helps influence the trajectory of your day.  One of my favourite mantras that I use to start my day is “ I am brave enough to handle what comes my way” and “ Never underestimate yourself, you are capable of many things”. 

2) Share your intention with a friend -  Sharing what you want with someone else will keep you focused, they can help support you, and hold you accountable to your goals. 

 

3) Share your intentions out loud with yourself - We tend to have conversations about how we want to be or what we want to do internally.  Saying your intentions out loud helps to encourage us and forces us to be more accountable for our actions.  

4) Create a ritual - Incorporate your intentions in your existing morning routine.  This helps to create a healthy habit which makes it seem easier to follow through with on a regular basis. 

5) Practise self-care - take time to focus on your mental health and check in with how you are doing.  If you are not at your best it will be very difficult to take care of yourself and others.  Use self-care to recharge yourself so you are better able to approach your day. 

6) Practise Gratitude - Focus on what you do have and what you are grateful for in this moment. Take time to practise gratitude for your intention, this will actually help you to be patient with yourself and remind you that some days it will be harder to live your intentions. For example, if my was my intention to be kind to myself, I could practise gratitude by understanding that I will make mistakes and have hard days and that is okay to not be perfect. 

7) Ask for what you want, then let it go - State what you want, think about it, bask in it, envision it, and resist the urge to control every aspect of it.  Trust that whatever your intention is it will happen in its own way in its own time.  Learn to trust the process. 

8) Remind yourself daily - Be firm with yourself and set expectations.  If you find it hard to remember your intentions create a vision board and leave it in your room so you see it when you wake up.  Or write your intentions on a post-it note and leave it posted near a light switch or put it on your mirror so you see it.

9) Consider how you will feel -  Focus on how good it will feel at the end of the day/week/month once you feel you have lived your intention or accomplished what you wanted. This can help you to stay focused and motivated.  

10) Keep a journal - Write your intentions down the night before, make a list of progress, or how you felt about reaching your goal for the day.  This can help shift you to a positive mindset in the morning making it easier to follow through with your intentions.