What is intentional living?
Intentional living is a philosophy and lifestyle approach that involves making deliberate and purposeful choices in all aspects of your life to align your actions with your core values, priorities, and goals.
It’s about living with awareness, mindfulness, and a sense of purpose, rather than simply going through life on autopilot.
How would you define an intentional life?
Before you read any further, I encourage you to pause and reflect on what makes a meaningful life for you right now in your journal. I won’t be surprised if you have a few ideas already.
Intentional living focuses on choosing the life you want to lead in a conscious way, rather than letting external forces or societal expectations dictate your path.
Intentional living is not a one-size-fits-all concept. What is important to you may not matter to another person.
What are some key principles to intentional living?
I hope this list with its thought provoking questions helps.
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- Self-Awareness: Know your values, beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses. Reflect and re-evaluate your goals on a regular basis. Have you taken time to find out what truly matters to you?
- Mindfulness: Being present means appreciating the here and now, rather than dwelling on the past or constantly worrying about the future. How mindful are you?
- Alignment with Values: Intentional living encourages you to make choices that align with your core values and beliefs. Like a little help? Check out my post on character strengths here.
- Goal Setting: Setting clear and meaningful goals is a central part of intentional living. These goals can be related to various areas of life, such as career, relationships, personal growth, and health. Goals provide direction and motivation. Are you a good goal-setter?
- Simplicity: Intentional living often involves simplifying your life by decluttering, reducing unnecessary commitments, and focusing on what truly brings you joy and fulfillment. This can lead to a more minimalist lifestyle. On a path of minimalism yet?
- Mindful Consumption: It emphasizes conscious and thoughtful consumption, whether it’s related to material possessions, food, media, or information. It encourages you to consider the impact of your choices on yourself and the world around you. How do you practice mindful consumption? Here’s one way I do it. I have an online print on demand notebook shop (click link here). It’s my way of reducing overproduction.
- Purposeful Relationships: Intentional living involves nurturing meaningful and authentic relationships with others. It means investing time and energy in connections that contribute positively to your life. Do you unplug from relationships that do not nourish you?
- Balanced Well-Being: Prioritizing physical, emotional, and mental well-being is an integral part of intentional living. This includes self care practices, managing stress, and striving for overall balance in life. What are some of your current self care practices? What new ones would you like to include?
- Continuous Growth: Intentional living encourages personal growth and learning. It involves seeking new experiences, challenging yourself, and continuously improving your skills and knowledge. Tackled something new lately?
- Gratitude: Cultivating a sense of gratitude for what you have is a key aspect of intentional living. It involves appreciating the positives in your life and acknowledging the abundance that exists. What are you grateful for? Challenged yourself to list 100 things yet? I encourage you to give it a try. I once did a 5K challenge – it transformed my life and shifted my mindset radically.
Journaling your thoughts and answers is a great way to get clear on what matters to you. If you like a deeper life coaching conversation, you can reach me on Linkedin
