An intentional career means taking ownership and control of what you do and how you do it in your work life. It’s about setting your own course and following it, changing direction when it feels right to you. But, in order to move forward with intention you need to know what your intention is.
Is intention just another word for a goal?
The dictionary definition of intention is “something that you want and plan to do“, a goal is the desired result. In the context of your career it’s important to differentiate between intentions and goals.
Intentions are for the present. They are what we are going to do today and everyday in order to achieve our goals. Say you’re an aspiring author like me… your goal might be to write and publish a book by the end of the year. Your intention might be to write at least 500 words a day. It’s what you are going to do, rather than what you are hoping that action will achieve.
Levels of intentions
You can set intentions at different levels. You might have an intention for the year, month, week or day. As the time frame gets shorter, your intentions will become more specific. Using the same goal as above you might set your intentions on the first of January as:
- Yearly: spend a minimum of 30 minutes working on the book project every day.
- Monthly: focus only on planning this month
- Weekly: work on the book structure and summaries for each chapter
- Daily: draft the chapters and headings
How long you want to set your intentions for is completely unique to you and what you are trying to achieve. For example, you might have a daily intention to not open your emails until you’ve done the first three things on your to do list, or to reach out to a connection to work on building a relationship. It could be anything that you are committing to do.
Building an intentional career habit
The more you get used to setting intentions and following through to reach your goals, the more you will naturally apply this across your career choices. It can help you to just focus on doing one thing at a time. One day at a time. When it comes to your career, it can help make sure that once you’ve set yourself a career goal, you are making positive steps towards it day in and day out. You start to take ownership and control for the changes in your life.
This only works when you commit to your intentions, and you’ll only stick to them if they really matter to you. Setting intentions which aren’t personally important, or you think you should be setting aren’t likely to be the ones you actually follow through on.
As with anything in life, you need to be true to yourself, your real goals and the actions which will get you there. As the new year approaches, maybe your intention should be to set intentions.
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