Let me ask you this: how often do you find yourself just going through the motions of life? Now more than ever it feels like we are being pulled into a million different directions—all at once! What do I pick up, what should I let go of, what is important, what can wait for another day? The demands on our time and attention are endless and it is easy to become distracted. We start to lose focus and ultimately we miss opportunities to contribute to the world in a meaningful way.
When we talk about the world’s highest performers, research studies have found that the highest correlative habit that high performers have, is that they seek clarity on a consistent basis. High performers have been found to have a higher level of curiosity than their underperforming counterparts. And they have developed simple daily practices to ask themselves:
- who they want to be
- how they want to interact with other people and
- how they can serve with excellence.
High performers have intention, and that intention is what we call clarity.
With that being said, how can you bring more intention to your day?
Here are three daily questions to ask yourself to become more intentional:
1. Who do I want to be today?
This question will require you to consciously think about every meeting or interaction that you have planned for the day, and to determine who it is that you want to be in that situation. How do you want to come across when meeting with your boss or having that difficult conversation with your partner?
High performers have a vision of themselves beyond their current circumstances and they consciously live into that vision every day by setting an intention for who they want to be. Do you want to focus on being more present? Do you want to remind yourself to show up authentically—expressing fully who you are? Or do you want to demonstrate more kindness to everyone that you meet?
Who is it that you want to be today and how can you remind yourself to be that person.
2. How do I want to interact with other people?
To bring more intention to the day we need to determine the feelings and experiences we want to create with the people that we interact with.
High performers anticipate positive social interactions, and they consciously and consistently strive to create those experiences. They don’t just stumble into interactions and allow randomness to dictate their feelings (that’s called being held hostage!). They generate how they want to feel and how they want to engage with other people, and they also set intentions for how that want to make others feel. Do you want others to feel uplifted? Do you want them to feel loved? Or is it that you want them to feel heard and understood?
So how would that intention require you to show up in conversation with others.
3. How can I make a difference and serve with excellence?
This doesn’t have to be about changing the world or even about leading a large-scale project at work. Sometimes all it comes down to is making a difference in the life of a single person. I like to remind myself that impact occurs at the rate of “one person at a time”. So how can you demonstrate care and bring attention to what you are doing, so that you can deliver that task you need to do today with excellence?
For each of these questions, I want to encourage you to write them down somewhere where you can see them throughout your day. What I do is to use a combination of post-it notes on my monitor or alarm triggers that go off on my phone. For you, it might look different—like putting up a reminder on your mirror, writing a note on your desk pad or using an activity like making your morning coffee to remind yourself of your day’s intentions.
I use a combination of post-it notes on my monitor and alarm triggers on my phone. For you, it might be putting a reminder on your mirror, writing a note on your desk pad or using an activity like making your morning coffee to remind yourself of your day’s intentions.
Let’s choose today, to live life with a little more intention every day.
