How does it feel like to live without intention?
Before starting to bring more purpose into your life, it’s good to start to look at your fears.
Everyone has something that holds them back from doing what they love. Find what it is and face it.
Becoming aware of your shadow parts is the only way how to find the freedom to do what you love to do. So let’s look at some of the most common fears of living intentionally.
When you live on auto-pilot, it’s natural to feel lost and even annoyed deep inside. The persistent irritation comes from the fact that you unconsciously know that you’re wasting time by doing unimportant things. Part of you feels trapped by all the responsibilities and to-do lists while another part wants you to start doing what you want. This creates emotional discomfort which subsequently penetrates all other areas of your life.
It’s difficult to change your life from day-to-day because it also influences those around you. For this reason, many people don’t change and wait for their life circumstances to change by themselves. They give power over their lives and happiness into hands of someone else which makes them feel like victims. Although this kind of fear is understandable, there is a moment in everyone’s life, when they wake up and feel like it was enough of surviving, it’s time to live truly.
Sometimes you’re afraid that by bringing more intention into your life, you’ll lose the approval of others and perhaps also their love. More often than not this fear is unjustified and if this happens then what the purpose of keeping those people in your life anyway is?
The signs that you’re not living your life intentionally:
- you’re afraid to say no
- you’re scared to say your real opinion because it could lead to conflict
- you don’t take advantage of your free time and end up being busy
- you keep people in your life who don’t enrich you
- you don’t know what you want to do as a career or business
- you wake up thinking; oh, another day …
- your schedule is full of duties and obligations
- you don’t smile often
- you feel like living your life for others rather than for yourself
These are just a few signs that you don’t live your life by your design. If you can identify with some of them, please, know that it’s fine. Your whole life is a journey; it’s not about a perfection. It’s only about how you feel on your life journey. Do you feel happy and fulfilled? If so then I’m very happy for you. If not, what is holding you back?
5 Ways to living your life intentionally
1. What do YOU want?
Most of us want to, at least subconsciously, make our family happy by doing what they expect us to do. This can be smaller things like cleaning the house or bigger matters like choosing a college and work up to their wise. Our desires are often mixed with others’ expectations and opinions that take the time to know what we want.
What would you want if you wouldn’t have to care about anyone else? Allow yourself to dream and dream big. Being honest is the first step to realizing what you want.
2. Know your why
Look at the things you’re doing and ask yourself what is your why. Take one activity after another and keep yourself asking what is the intention until you get an honest answer.
Let’s say that you wash dishes so that you don’t have a mess in your house. But maybe there is an even deeper underlying reason to relax your mind to show love and appreciation to your family. When you know your deepest intention, it empowers you to either do it with more joy or do it less because you do it out of fear.
3. What do you do out of obligation?
Which activities do you do because you feel like you have to? Is there something that you could change to do less of these activities?
Whenever we feel like we have to or should do something, we don’t give our hearts fully into it. Rather we do it with resentment and negative energy because we feel trapped somehow. Even though we might accomplish the task, others can feel our resentment, and thus they don’t feel genuinely grateful for what we do.
4. Find your flow
As I said earlier, any extreme upsets the balance and creates more chaos in our life. The most balanced way is to live in the flow. Finding your flow is pretty much an intuitive mission.
Your intuition can provide you much more individualized information than your general reason. Learn to trust it. Bring more intention into your life without becoming its slave. The life should feel natural and spacious rather than restricted.
5. Surrender the how
The most beautiful thing about life is that it’s effortless. We don’t need to spend our time figuring out every detail. It’s more about becoming a collaborator of the universe than forcing everything with our limited will. Not that you save so much time, but you’ll also find yourself in the field of more possibilities. The natural flow of life will take you to unknown places if you allow it.