A short coaching monologue arguing that cultivating brief, daily intentions (“entering situations intentionally”) produces a stronger sense of life purpose. The speaker contrasts reactionary, autopilot behavior with purpose-driven micro-choices (e.g., 30-second preps before parenting moments, setting a 45-minute email session) and illustrates applications in parenting, relationships, and work.
Intentional living doesn't take that much longer. It's like a beat before going into the situation. You know, let me take a second here to enter the situation more intentionally. That is the process of bringing purpose to a situation. Notice it doesn't say, you earned more, built more, did more. It says, the more daily intention you have, the more you sense your life is purposeful. If you don't feel this day, it's very likely tomorrow you're gonna be like, I don't feel purpose. And you forgot that feeling. The moments of life, that's presence is part of purpose. And to feel them even more, you bring an intention to it, right? To feel the day, you have to have the intention to feel the day. Intention precedes feeling. But most people don't know that they have a feeling. Then set an intention. I don't like this feeling. I'm going to change. But when you become more conscious and you say, oh, I'm going to enter this next situation intentional, it asks, what is it that I would love to experience or make happen in this next moment? Oh, I'm going to go play with the kids, or I'm going to go teach my kids math. Okay, I'm going to teach my kids math. Let me not just show up, plop the book down, look at me go, what are we doing? But instead say to yourself, okay, I'm about to go teach my kid math. How would I like to do that as a parent? How would I like to show up? What would I like that learning experience to feel like between us, father and son, mother and daughter, what do I want that to feel like? Even if they don't learn well today, what do I want the end of our learning session to feel like for them? What association do I want them to create with learning math today? Now, notice that took me, I think I clocked it right, just under 30 seconds to ask those questions of myself. Intentional living doesn't take that much longer. It's like a beat before going into the situation. You know, let me take a second here. To enter the situation more intentionally. That is the process of bringing purpose to a situation. Right now, I'm using and replacing the word intention with purpose for a specific reason. Because people get all lost in airy fairyland when they talk about purpose. But ultimately, purpose looks a lot like daily intention. And the more daily intention you have, research shows the more you say you have a purposeful life, notice it doesn't say you earned more, built more, did more. It says, the more daily intention you have, the More you sense your life is purposeful. That's pretty profound, isn't it? You know, you're going to go on date night with your spouse or your partner, the person who you're, you know, having a great time with or who you need to repair with before you go. Go. Okay, we're going to have dinner tonight. What would be a purposeful experience there? You know, we haven't laughed a lot lately. Let me lighten the air a little bit. Let me make some jokes. You know, we haven't been getting along lately, so let me take them to their favorite place tonight. You know what? It's been a little bit difficult with the finances lately. Let me find an inexpensive way that we can go out and have a picnic and make it incredible. It's about. See, you're going about life anyway, right? You're going to teach the math anyway. You're going to go to dinner anyway. One experience is showing up, going through the motions, reactionary, and the other is purposeful. I. I'm going to make this session of learning math purposeful to our relationship and to this young child's experience of learning. We're going to go to dinner anyway. What I'm going to do is make sure that the dinner feels like something so that we can have a better quality relationship. So that maybe I can take the stress off my spouse's day. Maybe I can make her laugh. Maybe we can go somewhere and have more variety. You know, we have to think of the way that we're going to do things in advance. That's purposeful. Being more intention into each situation of life. More presence while you're there. Repeat. Okay. You'll be stunned. You'll be stunned. That will make you better at everything that you do, but also have the added benefit of increasing the odds that you feel that your life has purpose. So please get that. That means you're cultivating purpose. You're choosing purpose. You're imbuing moments with purpose. What I love about that is it puts who in the driver's seat a little bit here. It puts yourself back in the driver's seat so you can cultivate the feelings you want to experience of life. You know, if you don't feel that you're getting that divine, daily, instant, incredible download of purpose, then you've got to do some work of your own. Make self improvement in the way of life. More intention, more presence in the situations of life. And I want you to do that at your work too. I know many of you are high performers. You're out there just crushing it. But a lot of it turns to reaction if you're not thoughtful. Okay, for me example, I'm not a person who loves email at all. So I literally have to pre frame my mind with intention and presence to do email. So when I go to do email, before I sit down, I set a clock. How long do I have to do email? Usually it's on my calendar, tells me where to go, but if not, I'll be like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to do 45 minutes right now. I'll clear the desk, I'll put on the headphones, I'll go through my music album and I'll pick something that might land around 45 minutes. I'll hit play, I'll hit that timer and I will do that 45 minute power session of email. Now by telling myself I'm going to keep it simple, I'm going to focus, I'm going to enjoy the process by listening to music and I'm only going to do it for 45 minutes. By doing that for 20 years, you don't hear me complain about doing email very often. Does that make sense? Because I've just taught myself it's going to get done. I'm going to make myself enjoy the process. I'm going to put this, that's just an intentional way of doing it. When I was miserable doing email, it was when I was random and I was just like, oh, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm working on this project, I'm not going. Let me just click over, answer some emails. When I was randomly doing it, there was misery there, higher intention, a less misery. And I really want you all to think about that. Your next call, your next meeting with your team. Entering with a little bit more energy of intention, I promise it just like you feel like you take the reins back of life. It's a really incredible experience and I'd love for you to have even more of that. I know being strivers here in growth day, you tend to be people who are already more intentional statistically than the average population. But again, we got to make it a way of life so I know we can all deepen there, myself included. It.
