INTENTIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH. It is great to have intentions, however, we have to follow through on them. This is really challenging and probably one of the biggest lessons in self development. Our minds are just not designed to automatically follow through on them.
Instead they are designed to react to squeaks from the external world ie they are continuously drawing our minds to other things we could be doing in the hear and now. 'Oh I can't be bothered to do that, it won't hurt if I go and watch a movie instead'.
Also, strategies to combat this design fault were never taught in school. If we had learned how to follow through on everything that we want in a positive way and kept going what would our lives be like today?
For me, this has been such an important learning. Below is a draft video of a short speech I am preparing for a speaking competition. In it, I share some of the frustrations I have been through on my own entrepreneurial journey. How I beat myself up until the realisation dawned on me ie THE MISSING SUCCESS LINK which I had always known but it had just not entered my consciousness. Which means it wasn't consciously part of my behaviour.
Being clear about what it is you want and then manually putting a follow through strategy in place so there is absolutely no wriggling out of it is essential. This year I have done that for each of the key intentions that I have. For example:
'Sales' - I now have someone helping me to follow through with my intentions.
'Aspiring to become a great Speaker' - I have a great speaker mentor, have entered a 'Speaker Factor' competition and committed to speaking engagements.
'Broad awareness of 'Be More. Achieve More' and 'raise my media profile'. I have committed to hosting 13 weekly radio shows on Voice America Business from September 2nd. No wriggling out of that one!
Great fitness - I have entered a half marathon and enrolled a group of others from my Achiever Programme to do it with me and raise money for charity. Can't get out of that one either!
I share these purely to help you if you wish to learn how to follow through with your intentions.
If you have any comments or feedback on the video or this blog let me know. The event is on the 12th July.