Intention + Attention – Anxiety = Success
Let’s read that again:
Intention plus Attention (minus Anxiety) equals Success
This rather neat little formula is from a book called Gravitas by Caroline Goyder, on how to communicate with confidence, influence and authority. It’s worth a read (or a listen, if that’s your preference – good for long car journeys!)
What does it mean, though?
From the dictionary:
Intention: a thing intended; a course of action, an aim or plan; (‘she was full of good intentions’).
Attention: close or careful observing or listening; the action of dealing with or taking special care of someone or something (‘her business needed her attention’)
Anxiety: a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome (‘he felt a surge of anxiety’)
Success: the accomplishment of an aim or purpose (‘the director had some success in restoring confidence’)
Photo: Danielle MacInness on Unsplash
Breaking it down
We know that to achieve our goals, we need to set our intention to that purpose. Just as a goal without a deadline stays a daydream, so too intentions without attention to anchor them often dissipate like morning mist, or New Year’s Resolutions!
Intention (focussing on the goal – a dream with a deadline)
together with
Attention (staying mindful of the moment attending to the here-now part of the goal),
but without
Anxiety (the small stuff that steals your energy and distracts you from your goal. Feel the fear, acknowledge it, and let it go. Pay attention to your goal regardless)
will result in
Success (achievement, growth, pushing back boundaries, widening the comfort zone, increasing your sense of personal power, self-belief made true)
First of all, you need to feel inspired. Being inspired to do something comes from within and will take you a lot further than motivation will. Motivation is externally driven and easier to lose, whereas inspiration feeds the dream and makes your brain tingle!
Photo: Greg Razorsky on Unsplash
Say you want to sell your car because a better one has caught your eye. This is your intention. But you keep putting off cleaning it, repairing it, taking the photos, because you get distracted. You need to bring your mind back to the reasons for wanting to sell it, for doing anything that you think is worthwhile, and pay attention to those reasons on a daily basis, so that you live with it, breathe it, even dream about it!
Think about all the reasons for selling your car, or losing weight, or creating a new habit, and why this is important to you. By paying attention, every day, constantly thinking, planning, checking, accounting, adjusting, and keeping the project uppermost in your mind, keeps your intentions aligned and keeps yourself accountable.
I find it useful to write out my goal and put a deadline to it (obviously) and then pin it up where I will see it – a sticky note on the edge of my laptop, kettle, fridge, bathroom mirror! And then check in with myself every day regarding my progress.
I also pay attention to all the nagging niggles and negative voices whispering in my head about why this will fail, why I can’t do it, why there’s no point trying, blah, blah, blah, and I acknowledge them. So I might say to myself, ‘yes, thank you for pointing that out, that’s useful information and I’m aware of it, but it doesn’t apply here.’ And let the anxiety go – it has no business getting in the way of you achieving the things you want for yourself.
Photo: Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
It helps to check in with yourself each day – I keep a journal – but you might meditate, or have a quiet moment with your morning coffee. Take time to remind yourself every day what you want to achieve, and why, and how you’ll feel when you achieve it. Note the anxieties you have as they crop up – don’t let them fester, but bring them out into the light and examine them. Why are they chirping in your ear? What is it that you feel you don’t deserve or can’t do?
When we examine our fears with compassion for ourselves, we often find that they are the lingering shadows of our past self. Perhaps they served a valuable purpose back then, but if they are getting in the way of what you want now or for your future self, this is an opportunity to let them go. They are not serving you if they are stopping you from feeling good about yourself.
Here is an example:
A friend of mine was given a team whose work she knew little about. Of course, she wanted the team members to see her management as a good thing, but more than that, she wanted to utilise their skills to ease the burden elsewhere. She had ideas but sensed their reluctance – some people had been doing their job the same way for years and were resistant to doing anything differently, or taking on more work.
So she listened to them, asked questions, took notes, offered opportunities they had previously missed out on, and put in quick win processes that brought immediate benefits to them all.
Without asking anything in return.
Gradually she shared her intentions to develop the team to a similar capacity as her other team, by which time they were willing to listen and more than half were keen to be part of her plans.
She kept to her intentions, stayed mindful of the bigger picture. She paid attention, always looking for ways to assist the team members develop both personally and professionally. She resisted their initial reluctance and negativity, going slowly but always towards her goal for the team. She kept faith with herself.
And she persevered.
Perseverance: the glue that binds it all together. The magic that transforms a dream into reality.
To success.
Photo: Bruce Mars on Unsplash
What do you want to achieve?
Intention + Attention – Anxiety = Success
