Setting Intentions for the Future
When you think of your dream life what things come to mind? For a lot of us, there is a clear answer or at least a broad outline of what we think our life should be like. Things like traveling more, having financial freedom, starting a family, and owning a business might be at the top of the list. These are all ideal outcomes for any path that we choose to follow and usually our thought process stops there.
Take a moment and imagine that you’re at a dinner with friends and someone asks the group, “What would your dream life look like?” You’ll find that everyone has their own standard answer for their dream life and the discussion could turn into a long-winded sharing of vacation stories or favorite memories. You might even hear someone say their ideal situation and in the next breath, discredit it with comments of how unattainable it might be. Now imagine a few moments go by and the last person in your friend group for this party shows up and asks about the conversation. Someone reintroduces the question “What would your dream life look like”, and the group goes into another round of stories and jokes about life. After hearing everyone’s answer, the last person hears the dreams of the person next to them and says, “Your dream sounds amazing, what are your plans to make that happen?” The response might be that they never thought about how, they didn’t think it was possible for them, or that they don’t have the means to make it happen.
The above scenario is what I imagine all of us would experience if asked how we plan to achieve our dreams. A lot of the time we have the quick answer of what we want but our process for thinking and making steps to get there fall short. Society and media has pushed the benefits of instant gratification, but does not help us think past the wanting things stage. In the scenario above, someone else asked the question and expected a response. The reality is that we should be the ones to ask the question and have a response for ourselves. This is why setting your intentions for the future is important. You have to not only see the life you want in your mind but also make a plan for how to get there. Time passes quickly and sometimes it can feel like there isn’t enough to get everything done. We spend so much time working, worrying about money, and planning for immediate outcomes that oftentimes we forget about our dreams or place them on hold for so long that it feels like we won’t ever get there.
You can start setting your intentions by writing down the things you envision would make you happy in life. Write down anything that you feel would bring joy to your life, experiences that you would like to have, or things you would like to do. It can be anything that you see yourself being happy doing. Do you want to visit a new city, start a business, learn an instrument, pay off loans, learn a language? Now, take a look at them and pick the one you’d like to do the most and spend some time looking up how to get there. Researching things may seem boring or cringeworthy, but what you’re doing in this exercise is tearing down the barrier in your mind that says that what you want to do is not possible. Every article you read about steps to learning a language, or video you watch about how to plan for financial freedom is a step toward opening your mind to the possibilities. You can do this, and there is a way to make things happen for you.
The part of setting intentions for the future isn’t just knowing what you want - it’s taking some time out of your day to think and plan how you’re going get there. Some things that we can all work on is not limiting ourselves to what we think we know but broadening our thoughts to what is possible. Instead of only knowing what we want, we can put things in motion to make it happen. Writing it down and gaining knowledge on how to get there can build your confidence in what is possible. And the next time someone asks what you see as your dream life, you’ll not only know the answer but will have made steps toward getting to that future.
