What It Means To Live Intentionally

The phrase to live intentionally gets thrown around often and can have different meanings to different people.

I'd like to share with you how intentional living fits in with life coaching. 

By definition, the word intentional means "to do on purpose."

Living intentionally means you are choosing deliberately (on purpose) how to use your time. 

Time is a limited resource. Once it is gone, it's gone and, truthfully, we don't ever really know how much time we have left. When you think about it this way, making good use of your time is essential. 

This fits in perfectly with the pursuit of creating your dream life. This is my favorite part of life coaching, helping others realize what that dream life is, and creating a plan to achieve it. Living intentionally is one of the key skills to master in this process.

By consciously choosing how you use your time, you will make more progress to your goals. Often times when we are not paying attention, time slips away from us or a task takes three times as long as necessary. Before you know it the day is over, the months fly by, the seasons change, and another year has passed on your calendar. This is how we procrastinate on creating our dream life in reality. Wasting time like this is kind of like going in a circle. You are going somewhere, yet you end up in the same place as when you started. You can see how important it is to consciously choose how you want to use your time to move forward. 

This technique has also helped me overcome my inability to say no when someone asks me to do something. I use to have a really hard time with that. Now I think about what it is I'm being asked to do, and ask myself: "Does this help me to get closer to reaching my goals?" If the answer is no, then my answer will be no. I realize the value of time and I know I can't do everything for everyone, especially when It's something I don't enjoy doing or doesn't align with what's important to me in life. This helped me feel less guilty about saying no.

Living intentionally doesn't mean you have to be selfish basing decisions solely on you. It's more about choosing to spend time on things that matter. While that may be on a project that moves you forward in your business, it may mean for others spending time with their loved ones. In each scenario, the person is choosing what is important to them to spend the time on. 

Tonight before bed, I want you to think about what is on your calendar for tomorrow. Ask yourself if the stuff on there are all things that are important to you. Do they bring you closer to your goals?

This week practice saying no to something. It doesn't have to be a big thing that someone has asked you to do. It can be something little as declining an optional meeting or meet up to spend that time in another way that's more important to you. 

Give these two techniques a try and see how much more productive, satisfying your week is. You may even have more energy when you don't say yes to everything.