On the 11th day of coaching my coach gave to me, eleven ways to live more intentionally.
 
Have you ever stopped and looked back 5 or 10 years thinking how did I get here?
 
You got there by the decisions you made and the choices you took. Did you make those decisions and choices intentionally?
 
If you want to live your best life you need to do it intentionally. That means living your life on purpose, not by the seat of your pants.
 
Here’s a framework you can use to start living intentionally.
  1. Pick three words that describe your best self and that you’ll use to guide your life including your thoughts and actions. My current words are Curious, Bold, and Present. What three words describe the best version of you?
  2. Next, journal under each of these words what living into that word looks like in your life. I do ___________ when I’m being ________. For example, I’m curious when I always approach projects, meetings, etc with a learning mindset.
  3. Then write down who is depending on you do live into each of your words. Add some necessity to each word. This is the “Why” you want to live into that word.
  4. Each evening reflect on how well you lived into each of your words. For me it would sound like this: “Did I show curiosity today? Where could I have been more curious?”
 
Bonus: Set an alarm on your phone giving it the label of your three words. Have it go off at random times during the day. When it goes off do a self-check. Am I being ________, ___________, and __________?
 
Live your life on purpose by being more intentional with how you show up.

Video Script

It is day 11 of the 12 days of coaching. And today we’re going to talk about being intentional.

Hi, I’m Phil Sherwood, your high performance coach, and I want to talk to you about being intentional.

What does that mean? Well, what it means is living on purpose.

Now, what do I mean by living on purpose? Have you ever woken up? And you start looking back maybe 5 or 10 years? And you wonder, how did I get here?

Well, you got there by the decisions you made. And by the choices that you took. Now, the question is, were they intentional? Did you intentionally get there?

Because living on purpose means being intentional about the actions you take every day to get to where you want to go? Living your life, on purpose.

How do you do that? How do you wake up every day living intentionally?

Well, first, you’ve got to decide that you’re going to do it and you’re here. So I hope you’re deciding that you’re going to do it, you’re going to live intentionally.

Now one of the first steps and one of the first ways that I have folks start down this path is to pick three words that would define your ideal self, who you want to be when you’re at your best. You know, those words define who you want to be. They could be loving, joyful, present, or vibrant. What are the words that describe the best of who you want to be?

But you may have seen my words up here, my three words right now are curious, bold, and present. Those are the three words that define when I wake up every day. That’s who I want to be. I want to be curious, I want to be inquisitive, I don’t want to always think I haven’t figured out, I want to be bold, I want to be able to make bold decisions, and be more courageous today than I was yesterday. And present. When I’m with people, I want to be fully in the now I don’t always want to be thinking about the future or thinking about the past. I want to think about where I am right now. And who I’m with. So what are the three words that define the best of who you are or who you want to be?

That’s the first step in living an intentional life is setting an ideal and then doing things every day to work toward that. Now, once you’ve picked out your three words, they shouldn’t just be three words on a wall. But you should flesh out in your journal, what do those look like? What did those three words cause me to do? It’s all about action. You want to take steps. And that means taking action toward living that way? What can I do today to be more curious? When I wake up in the morning, so I want that to be in my mind, I want to always think, what can I do to be more curious today? When I go into a meeting, what can I do to be more curious? What type of questions can I ask? What do I want to know?

How can I be more bold today? How can I step out? Where am I holding back?

And then how can I be more present today? How can I make sure that I’m locking in on somebody’s eyes?

So take a moment and journal the actions that describe what those words look like when you are living them in your life.

Now once you’ve done that, the next step is to go through the three words and to write down who is depending on me to be this today. Who is depending on me to be curious today? Who is depending on me to be bold today? Who do I need to step up for? Who is depending on me to be present today?

See, reflection. Being able to think intentionally about how you are going to show up in every situation. When you wake up. When you go into a meeting. When you go home for dinner. When you go to lunch with a friend. When you go to services at Church, who do you want to be? How are you going to live into the ideal of the best version of you?

And then the third thing is to do a review in the evenings before you go to bed and you journal in your journal.

Was I curious today? These are my words, not yours, but do it with your words. Was I bold today? Where could I have been more bold? Was I present today? Where could I have been more present?

So this is just a small way to start living intentionally.

If you got some big bold goals and you want to be able to get there, you’re going to have to do some intentional things. You’re going to have to start living more intentionally and living on purpose. So that’s coaching today is been intentional.

I’ll see you tomorrow.