Living Attentionally or Intentionally

Are You Living Attentionally or Intentionally?

Intentionality is relevant to everyone at both professional and personal levels. Without it, you can find yourself procrastinating, and struggling to achieve.

What’s the Difference Between Living Attentionally and Intentionally?

To explain and let’s use a playful metaphor – imagine for a moment you’re a dog. You decide now is the perfect moment to go dig up the tasty bone you buried by the front gate last Friday, so you head to the garden. In that same moment your owner calls out and throws you a stick which now becomes your focus of attention. As you race to retrieve the stick the bone is forgotten.

That’s living attentionally. Your sights are set on one thing, but something else pops up that grabs your attention and you’re off in a different direction.

If you live attentionally you may find yourself side-tracked many times a day with a delightful array of distractions such as social media, a ringing phone, planning your next meal, having a cigarette, a chat with a co-worker, an email, a text…

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of spontaneity. The question is are you choosing to be spontaneous, or is spontaneity a habit that’s running you, preventing you from focussing your attention on what you say really matters?

Living intentionally is to have clarity about what’s important to you, and why it’s important. It’s knowing and focussing on your purpose.

How to Harness the Power of Intention

First identify what’s driving you by asking yourself “What’s important to me about what I’m doing in life?”. Then ask “What’s important to me about that?” and ask that same question a few more times until you crystallise the essence of what is of deepest importance to you.

Next hold that intention in the back of your mind and in your heart as you move throughout your day. Once you have that clarity you can ask yourself moment to moment “Is this a distraction, or is this in alignment to what really matters to me?”

To access the powerful drive of intention, simply follow the flow.

1. Know your ‘why’, which leads you to…
2. The ‘What’ to pay attention to, which leads you to…
3. The ‘How’ or actions steps.

This simple but profound process allows you to avoid distractions, stay on purpose, and ensure you’re living intentionally.

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