When you’re a founder, entrepreneur or rising executive and also have non-negotiable, non-retractable commitments in other areas of life (as parent, as caretaker of a parent — areas where boundaries are cute but largely irrelevant), every single second is a tradeoff. In these high-growth seasons (especially if you’re trying to grow a business and grow a family), there is no discretionary time. There is time for work, time for them and, God-willing, time for you. The cost of wastefulness — lack of intentionality with our time — is almost always time for self. And once we cede that, we’re on the fast track to anxiety exhaustion, disenchantment, ‘not enough’-ness and eventually, burnout. Our time and attention are the most valuable resources we have. The size of the pie is fixed. We get the time that we get. We can squander it or harness it. I choose the latter. Enter Intentionality. Intentionality sets us up for success — not just in work, but in life — directing our attention to what really matters and ensuring time is put to its highest and best use. That it reflects the things we value the most — so we’re not just going through the motions, not just getting through the day. With Intentionality Practices, we can focus on what moves the needle at the system level. Not just title KPIs hiring Series A top line growth investor relations the next promotion customer acquisition… whatever are the metrics of professional success most pressing at the moment. And also time with family enrichment laughter hobbies friends play rest self… the things that really matter, that feed us energetically, that bring us joy. Sounds good, right? Let’s get into it. Implementation Intentions We’re ambitious, driven, goal-oriented people. (If you’re not, this probably isn’t the right newsletter.) We set goals on the regular, but that doesn’t mean we’re always successful. Perhaps you’ve noticed: motivation isn’t enough. Implementation Intentions significantly improve the likelihood of success by pairing a goal with a concrete plan. Depending on how much you lean into the planning piece, Implementation Intentions can go beyond prescriptive action plans to encompass contingency and worst case scenario planning that can keep you on track with your goals even when things start to go sideways or an obstacle appears that would otherwise derail you. There are three levels: Basic: Written Plan reflected in Calendar At the most basic level, Implementation Intentions involve a written plan for when, where and how you will achieve your goal. James Clear (Atomic Habits) recommends the following structure: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]. By specifying not just the goal, but also the when and where, this approach “turns your environment into a trigger for your desired behavior”. ❇️ I will do cold outreach to three potential investors every Tuesday morning from my office. ❇️ I will create my weekly content calendar after lunch on Mondays at the coffee shop. ❇️ I will go for a run around the neighborhood first thing every weekday morning. ❇️ I will write in my journal after the kids’ bedtime at my kitchen table. This approach increases compliance with desired behaviors by defining a clear, predetermined plan that you’ve committed to in advance. Last thing: Don’t just write the statement, dedicate space to it in your calendar. Block the time, or it’s a lot less likely to happen. Intermediate: Contingency Plan + Visualization Adding visualization that factors in likely derailers takes the practice of Implementation Intentions to the next level and further increases the likelihood of hitting your goal. Here you’re visualizing: 👉 the achievement of the goal 👉 the process of achieving the goal 👉 the things that could go wrong in pursuing the goal 👉 the hurdles that could make you give up on your goal Adding sensory details makes the visualization even more powerful. The more specific the better. Visualize what you will do if:
Include in your visualization all the scenarios you fear and turn that fear into fodder. With this layer, the plan becomes: “I will go for a run around the neighborhood first thing every weekday morning AND if it’s raining when my alarm goes off, I will do a HIIT workout from YouTube." Specifying and committing to this contingency plan in advance makes it a lot less likely that you’ll hit the snooze button and a lot more likely that you’ll hit your goal. Want to go really deep? Add a link to that HIIT video in your recurring calendar invite just in case you need it. Friction-free baby! Advanced: Defined Exit Parameters Taking Implementation Intentions to the next level involves defining in advance the parameters and circumstances under which you will quit. It may seem self-defeating, but pre-determining the circumstances under which you will quit makes it a lot less likely you’ll succumb to self-doubt and surrender. This level comes into play for endurance athletes, founder journeys and folks tackling any large goal that imposes emotional, psychological and/or physical stress and requires a progressive investment of time, energy and other resources. Specifying the bug out triggers in advance preserves your nerve and prevents premature surrender or pivot when things start to get uncomfortably dicey. It’s a way to hold Future You accountable to your current rational, non-exhausted self. To level up the intentionality even more, share your exit parameters with an accountability partner who will remind you what you are willing to endure to reach your goal. Creative Time With Conscious Calendaring (more on that in an upcoming issue), we can intentionally invest time in activities that are force multipliers for our energy and cognitive capacity. Creative expression is an excellent example. It opens your mind calms the nervous system & stimulates higher order thinking. That’s the difference between: understanding an opportunity and unlocking it collecting dots and connecting them stressing and problem-solving. There’s more. Creative thinking also accelerates the cycle time of personal growth. 💫 It leads to heightened awareness of self and surroundings providing fodder for ideation 💫 It reframes problems as questions, tapping into curiosity to guide deeper root cause exploration and integration 💫 It facilitates generative problem-solving by surfacing options and paths that would not have been seen with conventional thinking alone. The ripple effects extend far beyond the time you spend directly engaged in creative expression. Here’s how it played out for me: On the Monday after Thanksgiving, I calendared 9-10pm (right before my fantasy-bedtime), every Monday-Thursday night, as “Creative Time”. I’d been feeling the urge to be hands-on creative for months but was not making it happen. I told myself I “didn’t have time”… but then was spending an hour (at least) before bed mindlessly watching shows I didn’t really care about and/or mindlessly scrolling on social. I made an intentional decision to reclaim my time and use it to my advantage. My only rule: anything creative counts. (This is a great example of “flexible consistency”, which is a super helpful strategy to overcome barriers to new habit formation.) It took a couple of weeks to get into the groove — baseball games and other shenanigans had my boys up past 9 several nights, which was not conducive to my open-ended creative expression. Still, I celebrated every time I was able to make it happen. Some nights my creative time was allocated to bake sale prep or wrapping teacher gifts — not exactly what I’d had in mind — but, embracing my rule and the spirit of flexible consistency, it checked the box. As December rolled on, I felt the benefits start to kick in. My Cycle Time started to speed up. Ideas were converging, my creative energy was firing on all cylinders. I felt what fellow founders, entrepreneurs, and other creators would recognize as the energy to build, build, build. I was fired up! All that creative noodling (and doodling) unlocked meaningful revelations and new ideas. Plus, I felt fantastic! Unshackling from social has all sorts of ancillary benefits. 🙌 On December 30th, roughly a month after jumpstarting the flywheel of my creative thought, months of dots that I’d collected, examined, combined and recombined over the weeks and months prior, finally clicked into shape: opportunity identified and unlocked. It was the most revenue-productive 90 minutes of 2023. Talk about a high ROI on time converted from mindless scrolling to creative expression! Get your own creativity flywheel going by introducing intentional creative expression: 🎨 Consciously Calendar it. Convert time or claim time. Whatever it takes. 🎨 If you have a creative hobby, re-prioritize it. If not, do what I did and mix it up. 🎨 Lower the hurdle to build the habit. Make it frictionless by setting up your creation station at the end of your workday. 🎨 Incorporate thoughtful content to enhance the effect. Play binaural music for open-ended exploration or a specific podcast episode to stimulate thought around an area of curiosity or blockage. 🎨 Enjoy the time. Don’t commit to an aggravating project. Keep it joyful and light. 🎨 Celebrate the wins to reinforce the habit. Intentional Living is about: Creating Time Reallocating Time Harnessing Attention It's making space for what matters. It's forging a path for success that encompasses all your identities, not just your professional one. It's dedicating your most sacred resources -- time and attention -- to the people and activities that feed you energetically, that fuel your passion, that amplify your impact, that fill your heart. It's a huge shift that is achievable with small steps. Start here and we'll keep going together. 💗 Hi friends! I would love to help more people learn to live an Intentional Life. If you could Forward this Issue to a friend or send the link to Subscribe, I would be so grateful! Want to go deeper? Schedule a Discovery Call here. Want to hang on the regular? Let’s Connect on LinkedIn! |
Straightforward strategies to pursue your purpose, accelerate your growth, show up as your whole self, increase higher order thinking and align your time with your values. What to try. Why it Works. For When it Matters.
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