Good Intentions

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Oh. I've got 'em. I've got so many of 'em, they can pave the way to you-know-where with enough left over to get me half-way paved to the other, better, more-desirable-place.

What good intentions are you holding onto?

I have had for a very long time a great intention that I would build my business by sending out an e-mail with organizing tips every month. (You remember: www.organizeitmom.com? Oops. Was that shameless self promotion? Yes. Yes it was.) But the e-mail is a good intention not an action. So. Now that I have a blog, I'm going to be posting tips that I intended to e-mail and my new intention is to do so every Tuesday. Subscribe. You don't want to miss them. (Shameless. Shameless!)

Do you want to move from a good intention to an action? If you were reading above, I just showed you how. The first step is to realize you have a problem. Next, you confess you have a problem. Wait. That's a different program. But hey, if the steps fit...

Actually, intention articulated can increase your sense of obligation. So if you want to move from intention to commitment, it can help to say it out loud to someone. Be accountable to someone else besides yourself.

Often our good intentions get swallowed up by a whole other pile of stuff that must be done. I often say to my little guy, "We have to do what we have to do, then we get to do what we want to do."

You know what? It's okay for good intentions to be swallowed. It's unrealistic to think every good idea should become a reality. And you really do have to do what you have to do. Think about it for a minute and before you decide to move a good intention from the "want to do" list to the "have to do list," be sure it's really more important than the other "have to do" that will need to fall off the list to make room for the new one.

If your good intention makes the cut and it's now on the priority list, you need one more critical thing... a deadline. You have to create a sense of urgency for yourself. If you don't have a deadline, other fires will be more important EVERY time.

So, you see how I did this above? I decided I want one of my intentions to be a priority. I told you about how I'm going to change so I'm accountable to you. (In case you were wondering, that means you can pester me if I don't keep my promise.) Then I gave myself a deadline.

I'm feeling really good about this intention not becoming another paving stone on my road to who-knows-where. Only Tuesdays will tell.

How do you move a good intention to action?

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