Kristen Franey

Leadership Coach

Kristen Franey

Kristen Franey is a Transformational Mindset Coach and founder of Your Compass Within, supporting successful leaders to reconnect with their purpose so that they can set and achieve BOLD goals with confidence, fully aligned to their self and soul. She is a corporate escapee, coffee fanatic, and health enthusiast, and her mission is to enable at-risk girls to stay in school. Follow YCW on FB and visit her website here to get all the latest updates, news and inspiration.

New Year! New Decade! New Goals!

Problem is, just setting goals is not setting you up for success.

What has been proven to be more successful, is setting intentions, and from these, the goals will follow and be clear.Let’s break it down.

So, what is a goal?

: The object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result. Similar words are aim, objective, my favorite: Holy Grail, and end target.

Goals, therefore, are fixed. An end target, you have an end goal. They are the final destination of your efforts.

When setting them we ensure they are SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound.

They can be very limiting by the very nature of the ways to set them successfully. If you are setting your own goal, are you likely to be as ambitious as possible, or are you likely to say that within a certain amount of time you are likely to be able to achieve what you can celebrate? Inherently, this keeps you from pushing yourself to achieve all your limitless potential.

Consider on the other hand, and intention:

: A thing intended, an aim or a plan.

Similar words are purpose, intent, design, goal, desire, aspiration. And in medicine, intention refers to a healing process.

Intentions are limitless
Intention is the WHY – and the Goal is the HOW.

Intentions are the foundations of goals – the big picture that you need to be clear on before you can find true success with the goals.

If you are finding that you are often not achieving your goals, or not even setting them, ask yourself this:

Have you sent intentions?
Are you crystal clear on those intentions?
Are you consistent with your intentions?

Intentions are the beginning – the seed – of manifesting and attracting what you want.

Because you are aligning your desires, thoughts, energy, and vibration with the universe
Practically – you are using your intention as a lens to guide you

→ Every action begins with an intention: before rolling out of bed in the morning, you have an intention to do so

→ Every thought, therefore, begins with an intention. Because thinking is also an action.

As Deepak Chopra says: “An intention is a directed impulse of consciousness that contains the seed form of that which you aim to create. Like real seeds, intentions can’t grow if you hold on to them. Only when you release your intentions into the fertile depths of your consciousness can they grow and flourish.”

Bringing that inkling of awareness from the subconscious to the conscious creates your intent.

Intention then becomes the lens through which you approach your actions.

Intention is how I choose to be, what I choose to focus on, and WHY I choose to bring this into the world.

Consider this,

“This conscious change is brought about by the two qualities inherent in consciousness: attention and intention. Attention energizes, and intention transforms. Whatever you put your attention on will grow stronger in your life. Whatever you take your attention away from will wither, disintegrate, and disappear. Intention, on the other hand, triggers the transformation of energy and information. Intention organizes its own fulfillment.” Deepak Chopra

Intentions focus on the present moment – and the abundance of opportunity, rather than GOALS which focus on the future, which is unknown. This is then likely to keep you focused on what you don’t have so that you approach situations from a perspective of lack rather than abundance.

So, how do you use this in the real world?

For 2020, my intention is to AMPLIFY –

I am putting this into the world so that there is an energy around it
I am creating energy that aligns with amplification
Every decision that I am faced with goes through the lens of amplification
When I review my days and weeks and set up the new ones I come back to my intention: Did I amplify all that I had the opportunity to amplify?

Goals are important – SMART and BOLD – [Brave, Obligatory, Life-like, Determined]

BOLD goals are driven out of clear intentions, clear purpose.

And how do you get there?

Simple: sitting in meditation brings the thoughts clearly from thought → intention → reality

Create quiet
Allow stillness
Release your intentions – set them, and set them into the Universe
Detach yourself from the outcome – trust the Universe
This doesn’t mean you get to bounce around aimlessly. You have agency and control over your actions.
What it DOES mean is that when you are clear on your purpose you get clear on your intentions and desires and you get clear on your BOLD goals – and the steps to achieving your goals unfold with clarity.

So, how often should I be setting my intentions, so that I am not bouncing around all over the place, I hear you say.

Start big: KNOW YOUR PURPOSE – THIS IS THE GREATEST INTENTION
For the year – choose and align with a word of the year if you like – AMPLIFY, GROWTH…
For the month, and week – this is how you will direct your energy
And, daily – with your meditation practice. It is so important to create a ritual so that you can FEEL your intention and the result of achieving it and living in it.
Set your intention into the world.
Be open to all the possibility

Intentions are important because they:

Connect you to source and the universe
Ground you to your purpose with clarity
Set the stage for manifesting
Enable you to approach from a perspective of abundance rather than lack – present-minded
Enable your goals to come to fruition – often in unexpected ways.