How to Live With Intention During the Quarantine and Beyond

Living with intention is one of the most valuable ways to create a life that you love. When it comes to self-leadership in these uncertain times, it can feel difficult to know what to do to stay motivated and to continue to move forward. When you are in a state of stress and anxiety your thinking becomes more scattered as energy is diverted towards more primitive functions to offer you an opportunity to stay and feel safe. This is why it is so important to calm and balance your nervous system in order to move forward in your life with ease and grace—no matter what the circumstances of life present (like a 2 month quarantine…).

Leading yourself may already be challenging enough without the present state of the world. Staying in a space of self-awareness, self-reflection and maintaining motivation and inspiration to move forward are difficult feats on a good day. Put a dose of uncertainty and the major stressors that we are all facing at this time on top of your everyday challenges and you might feel as though you’ve become stagnant, defeated, or worse, you might be backsliding. This is a normal part of the change process and it is times like these that we have the ability to build resilience and grow.

One way to live with intention is to create opportunities to choose how you want to feel. You might feel like you are stuck with whatever emotion you are experiencing in the moment during these times. You might feel like you don’t have a choice or option and you can either just push through, dwell in it, or avoid it through emotional repression. This does not have to be the case. While you want to assess and understand whatever emotion you may be experiencing, that does not mean you are stuck with it and that you don’t have the power within yourself to manage it more effectively. Ultimately, you get to choose how you want to feel and always could choose another emotion.

Imagine you wake up and immediately feel anxious, fearful and uncertain. Then you find yourself moving through your day with stress hormones flooding your system, feeling more and more stressed out. Living with intention allows you to choose in the moment a new way to experience the present moment. Here are the steps to intentionally create a new emotional experience, a new way to choose to live within your present moment.

1.    Acknowledge and name the emotion you are experiencing.

2.    Ask if this is a true or useful experience of the present moment? Be curious about the message this emotion has for you.

3.    Use a coping skill to understand and manage the emotion.

4.    Ask yourself: How do I want to feel today?

5.    Ask yourself: What 3 things can I do to help myself create this/these feeling(s)?

6.    Set the intention to use these action steps to help create this internal emotional/feeling experience within you.

7.    Receive self or external accountability. For self-accountability, write down when you are going to take these actions to help create these feelings within. Put reminders on your phone or use sticky notes where you will see them. Reflect at the end of the day on how these actions allowed you feel. For external accountability, tell someone who supports you what your intentions are for the day and ask for support, reminders or anything else that will allow this person to give you the inspiration you need to move forward and take action.

8.    Reflect on your process. How did it go? Was it effective? What will you do tomorrow to ensure that you set up your day in a way that allows you to feel how you want to feel?

Here is an example: 

1.    Acknowledge and name the emotion. Presently I feel anxious and stressed.

2.    Is this a true representation of the present moment, is it useful right now? No. The message of my anxiety is feeling overwhelmed and uncertain. I acknowledge that these feelings are related to fear based thoughts.

3.    Coping skill I can use: deep breathing and a body scan to calm my nervous system and relax my body.

4.    How do I want to feel? Strong, focused and hopeful.

5.    Actions I can to take to create these feelings: Strong: exercise and stay mentally strong by addressing any anxiety with thought examination technique. Focused: get 3 work tasks completed, cook a nourishing meal for dinner and spend time reading. Hopeful: use my gratitude journal, focus on what is going well and reflect on the positives of my day.

6.    Set the intention to take these action steps: Today I set the intention to feel strong, focused and hopeful..

7.    I will use self-accountability by writing specifically in my planner when I will complete these actions in order to ensure that I follow through and picture myself taking these actions.

8.    How did it go? When I completed each of the actions and reconnected with my intentions for the day I increased those feelings within and created the experience within that I desired. This also improved my feelings of being hopeful and feeling strong and capable. I feel more mentally balanced and calm.

Often, we know what to do, but unfortunately it can be challenging to follow through. Making ourselves a priority can be tough. Feeling anxious, fearful and uncertain makes us feel out of control. These feelings create internal confusion and a sense of being overwhelmed and make it more challenging to think clearly and to focus. That’s why this process is so valuable to work through every single day.

We are all just trying to do the best we can with what we have. If it feels like the best you can has not been working out well, that is where you can search for the accountability you need, either from within or externally. Each time you follow through with setting your intentions and following the actions needed to create the way you want to feel, you will improve your self-esteem. The more that you value yourself and feel good about yourself the more you will build inner inspiration and motivation to continue moving forward. So now is the time to get started! What is your intention for the rest of your day today? How do you want to feel?

Step TEN to Creating a Life You Love: Re-evaluation, Self-Compassion and Living in Grace

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” —Anne Lamott

The 10th and final step to create a life that you love is about graceful living and self-compassion through the growth process—which really is a lifelong process. With this final step, you may find that your goals shift and maybe even majorly change. Sometimes what you think you want dramatically changes when you are more engaged in the self-reflection and self-awareness process. With self-reflection it can come to light that what we think we want may really be what others have wanted for us—or what we think we should do rather than what we truly desire deep inside.

Currently a lot has changed with the COVID-19 virus impacting everyone all around the world. Have you noticed any shifts or changes from this significant shift in the way you work, commute, socialize and live your life? This is a helpful time to evaluate and re-evaluate your vision for your life, your goals and most importantly to focus on taking care of yourself.

Throughout this step there will be opportunities for evaluating and re-evaluating your personal change process. You want to ensure that you create a lifelong dedication to being true to your authentic self. Self-compassion and graceful living are at the core of this step. These are subtle and yet powerful shifts that solidify the benefits of the change process. They are rooted in mindfulness. How to be with yourself, how you treat yourself and care for yourself are essential to creating a life that you love. You spend a lot of time with you, and maybe at this time, more than ever before! When you are attempting to grow in self-leadership, you want to get along with, offer support to and care for yourself.

Living gracefully is being accepting, at ease and patient with life. Now if you are a total type-A person, that does not mean changing yourself at the core of who you are, that would not be living in authenticity. It does mean if you are type-A (a bit controlling, like things a certain way, impatient, maybe a little bossy?) that you could work to soften and create more grace towards yourself and others.

As you are engaging in the change process and feeling more grounded and empowered to live the life you want and a life that you love, it is helpful to re-evaluate where you are. As you reflect on how you got where you are, you can assess if this is in alignment with where you want to go. If you not, that’s ok! It’s better to know now. Life is short, but at the same time, life is a really long time to feel stuck and unfulfilled. It’s never too late to shift gears and create new goals and reimagine your vision—no matter what.

Self-compassion is an essential element to this process of personal growth and change. When you treat yourself with kindness you are more likely to extend that kindness outward and become resilient. There are three parts to the process of offering yourself compassion in times when you are struggling or feeling down on yourself. These three steps to self-compassion are: 

1.    Mindfulness- aligning with what is true right now. How are you feeling right now? Do not go into a judgmental space, just notice and allow yourself to be present with whatever is there.

2.    Universality- reminding yourself that you are human! Remind yourself that at times everyone feels this way.

3.    Kindness- say to yourself words that you would offer to a dear friend going through the exact same emotional experience or struggle. 

Here’s an example to highlight the process of offering yourself self-compassion: I am upset with myself for not completing my desired action steps and not following through with my plan for this week. I am beating myself up inside and feeling inadequate and like a failure. Shifting into self-compassion, first I become mindful of my emotions and ask myself, what is true right now? Then I acknowledge how I am feeling, right now, which could be: I feel inadequate, I feel like a failure, I feel frustrated, sad and defeated. Then I offer myself the experience of feeling the universality of this experience: sometimes everyone feels this way, at times everyone feels disappointed in themselves, this is a common human experience. Then I offer myself kindness and consider what I might say to a friend experiencing the same circumstance: I am committed to my goals, I just got distracted last week and that’s ok, there’s A LOT going on in the world right now that feels out of control. This week I can plan and prepare to follow through. It’s also ok to not push myself so hard when there are additional stressors out of my control in life. How do you feel after reading that? Think of a time you were hard on yourself and practice these three steps to experience how it feels to offer yourself self-compassion in the present moment.

When you are stuck in the thought cycle of beating yourself up, you will most likely stay in the disappointed and defeated state for a much longer period of time. This does not build resilience. When you apply that kind of grace to yourself you feel less pressure and you will be less likely to punish yourself internally. This process builds an extremely valuable inner resources such as feeling confident, strong and worthy. This process releases any internalized guilt and shame. This very simple three step process can produce profound shifts and results within your life.

Graceful living is living in a state of ease, not trying to control, force or judge anyone or anything—especially yourself. It is truly a kind way to be and exist within your life. Grace is not easy all the time and requires, just like anything else, practice. How can you approach something with a bit more grace today? Try it and notice the impact. Patience and releasing judgment are important factors, and they too are a practice—often a lifelong practice.

Now that you have been working through these ten steps, I hope you can integrate this very useful element of self-compassion and living in grace towards yourself and others. This not only allows you to create a life that you love, but to have a mindful, accepting and peaceful inner and outer experience.

Have you been using these steps to work towards any particular change in your life? I’d love to hear how this process has impacted you and the changes you desire. I do hope this finds you healthy and safe amid this global crisis. Please, take care of yourself and be well.

Step NINE to Create a Life You Love: Making Adjustments to the Change Process Through Self-Reflection

“But there is a corollary to freedom and that's personal responsibility, and the real challenge is how you generate that personal responsibility without imposing it.” —Esther Dyson

Step 9 to creating a life that you love is about understanding how new learning can be integrated throughout your personal change process and how you can apply it to all areas of your life. Most likely you will need to make adjustments, and these will be based on constant self-reflection. Fine tuning your change process by taking personal responsibility for your life is a big part of this step. You continue to deepen your self-reflection and self-awareness in order to stay motivated and connected to your vision. This process ensures that you continue to feel good about the person you are growing into on a daily basis. You will also give yourself space to celebrate all of the shifts and changes you have created up to this point in the process.

As humans we are driven by and respond to rewards. Rewarding, celebrating and staying focused on what is going well throughout your change process helps to create this subtle shift in growing in the direction of who you want to be and how you want to live. As you celebrate and apply your new learning it is helpful to share those insights and skills with others. When you share with others you solidify and strengthen what you have learned. This sharing process makes it more real, more solid and more grounded within you.

Taking personal responsibility for your life is closing the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it. As you have formed new habits, focused on what’s going well and accessed your support team as needed, living within the ability to make choices based on your vision is essential. This demonstrates the ability to take personal responsibility for your life. This is where many people get stuck. They struggle to keep going, to stick with the practices that work once they feel good and complacency can start to creep in… complacency can destroy your vision.

When you take personal responsibility for your life, you essentially ask yourself before each choice, decision and undertaking you make, “does this choice support my vision?” If the answer is no, then is it worth it? Ultimately, you have to decide this, often multiple times a day. This is where reviewing and staying true to the process of change is essential. The thing is, you don’t just go through the steps once and create a life you love. You have to review, redo and keep moving forward by taking personal responsibility for your life every single day. When things go awry it’s easy to look outside yourself for where to place the blame. This is not taking personal responsibility. When you can look within and reflect on your own blind spots, your shadow and patterns, you have the ability to continue to fine-tune them. 

While self-awareness is the heart of step 1, it’s necessary throughout each and every step to build on your self-awareness through constant self-reflection. This is how you can make the necessary adjustments. One way to do this is through integrating rewards and celebrating what is going well. Step 9 is really about constantly reintegrating all of the previous steps so that you don’t find yourself in a state of complacency, that where you’ve made it to is good enough even though your vision is much greater. In step 9 you remind yourself not to settle, to keep moving towards what you want and remaining aligned with why you want it.

When you engage in regular self-reflection, make the necessary adjustments and celebrate your wins, you will find yourself closer to living in alignment with your vision. When you take personal responsibility for your life, stay in alignment with your greater vision and reward yourself for your shifts no matter how small, you will find yourself creating a life that you love.