Living Intentionally

Are you living intentionally?

Are you living with purpose, a goal in mind, and not just going through the motions?

What is most important to you and are you living as though those things are most important?

I want to address these questions today and give you some insight into what I believe it means to live a life of intentionality.

What is Intentionality?

If you Google intentionality, the definition is: the fact of being deliberate or purposive.

It also says that “intentionality is the power of minds to be about something: to represent or to stand for things, properties, and states of affairs.”

To me, living intentionality means to live with purpose. It means to live with an overarching goal that you spend your whole life chasing.

And maybe “chasing” is not the best word for this. I want to imply the thought of being on a journey and working towards an objective by working WITH others. So maybe “seeking” fits better here.

I also believe that living intentionally means not letting other things get in the way of the life I’m seeking to live. Things such as:

• Negative thought patterns

• Distractions that could take me downhill

• Shiny object syndrome

Now, this doesn’t mean ignoring responsibilities and pushing people and things away to get what I want. It means that I have an objective that I am working towards and I can’t let myself be pulled in other directions. I know what’s good for me and also what’s bad for me.

And I know I’m being a little ambiguous here. So maybe it will make more sense if I share my life goals and why I strive to live intentionally.

Ok, wow. Now I’m nervous. I don’t know how much detail I’m going to go into. I didn’t really think this one through lol.

My life goals & why I strive to live intentionally

I have more than one passion in life and I’m still trying to trim the fat off of my vision and hope for living a life of intentionality, but a couple of things are constant.

1. My faith. Faith in God and His son Jesus Christ will always be number one for me. And along with this comes intentionally trying to live as much like Christ as I can, radiating His character in everything I do, and sharing the hope of Christ with others. I’m always trying to grow in this area.

2. Equipping others. More specifically, in the category of faith, I am passionate about equipping young men to follow Christ wholeheartedly by living intentionally for God. Maybe that’s another blog for another day.

3. Education. Continuing to educate myself in health & fitness so I can share and teach what I know with others to help them live a healthy lifestyle.

4. Exploration. And I like to see and explore new parts of the world and bask in the beauty of God’s creation of planet earth.

This all comes down to the lifestyle that I intentionally strive to live. I talk about lifestyle, and more specifically, living a healthy lifestyle, a lot. Living a healthy lifestyle needs to be met with intentionality.

I want to be an example of and show others how to live a lifestyle rooted in good health. And faith- if that is important to the individual.

To me, this means living with purpose and not just going through the motions or going with whatever feels right at the time. I’ve learned that our feelings are not always reliable because they change and aren’t always based on logic. If I don’t feel like working out, that’s not a sign that I shouldn’t exercise!

Just because I feel good about something doesn’t mean it is actually good or right for me. We don’t know it all and we can’t feel our way through life. I used to think that I could.

I believe we have to have faith in God, let Him work, but also do our part by living intentionally.

What would you say are most important to you?

A lot of people would say that some combination of the following things are important to them:

• God/faith/religion

• Family/spouse

• Friends & other relationships

• Health

• Career/business/finances

I have some homework for you, should you decide to accept it.

Spend some time in deep thought, prayer, self-reflection. Go for a walk or sit down with a pen and paper. Write down a list in order of the things that are most important to you.

Spend the next week or so paying attention to how you spend your time and energy. Mark tally points next to each category whenever you spend time in that category.

For instance, dinner time with the family gets a tally in the family category. Spending time structuring a new business marketing plan gets a tally in the career category or whatever category this fits for you.

At the end of the week, look at all of your tally marks and see where you truly spend the majority of your time.

We all have to work. So when you notice you have most of your tallies in the “career” section and not as many in the “family” category this doesn’t mean you don’t love your family and that you work too much.

But I want you to take notice of some things. So maybe your family category isn’t maxed out. But is your time with them intentional? Are you being intentional with going out of your way to spend quality time with them regularly?

Have you ever written down what your life mission is?

I challenge you to do that today. It doesn’t have to be ready for print, it could just be a quickly jotted down list of everything that is important to you. Then start to narrow down what is MOST important. Begin to figure out where your passions lie and what you want to intentionally live for.

I hope that today’s blog starts to get the wheels turning in your mind. I hope that it can be a wake-up call to keep you in your purpose or maybe even give you a push to make a shift in the direction you are going in life.

What does living intentionally mean to you?

What do you deem to be most important and are you spending your time there?

Let’s live a life of intentionality by living with purpose.

Let’s strive to make daily decisions that align with our values and life mission.

Let’s live a life of service to others by helping each other live out their own purpose.