What are INTENTIONS and Why You NEED to be Using Them

Whether you’re working the law of attraction, striving to achieve your dreams and goals, or just trying to get through the day, knowing what intentions are and how to set them is the most powerful tool you have. Intentions are relatively simple acts that have an immense effect on your life. They are the starting point of co-creating your life and one of the most important techniques for using the law of attraction. Learning how to set intentions and use the power within are the first step in creating the life you want and achieving your desires.

So what exactly are intentions, and what makes them so important? This is the first in a series of posts that covers just that. So check it out and be sure to follow up with:

In This Series:

What Are Intentions and Why You Need to Be Using Them (this post)
When to Set Intentions
How to Create Powerful Intentions
How to Set Successful Intentions
How to Manifest Intentions

What Is an Intention?

Powerful Intentions 1 square » Sarahdawn Tunis

An intention is a very simple concept. It is a purpose, desire, goal, aim, or plan. More specifically, it is the statement of that purpose, desire, goal or aim. Or, in other words, it is saying what you want… in a more formal manner than just blurting it out to yourself or in casual conversation.

Like the announcement of a well-thought-out plan.

It is actually such a simple concept that in normal use of the English language, the word is rarely used and doesn’t carry much weight. It is even commonly used as an excuse when things don’t work out as expected. “Well, that was not my intention.” Or how about this one? “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Giving the impression that intentions are all well and good but really don’t matter much in the long run.

Yet when it comes to the law of attraction, the use of intention is extremely important and powerful. In fact, it is one of the most important steps for using the law of attraction and for manifesting what you desire.

Sure, an intention is little more than an idea or a statement, but this simple act carries the power to propel you toward what you desire. It is how you will begin to create the life you want. Be it a life full of love, health, and happiness with prosperity and abundance. Or you just need to attract your dream car. Whatever it is you desire, intention is how to bring it into your existence. Without intention, you really don’t have much to work with.

Intentions are the first step in manifesting your desires, changing your reality, and co-creating your life. It includes dreaming up the possibilities, imagining what it will be like, and then declaring with all your heart and soul that this is what you intend to have, accomplish, or experience. Intentions are your declaration. A way to shout out to the universe what it is you want and what you expect to have.

While co-creating your life and attracting your desires, you need to make sure the universe, your angels, spirit guides, and every part of your conscious being know what you desire to create. And you need to be sure it is clear and exactly what you want to manifest. That is what an intention does.

An intention is:

What you want
Saying what you desire out loud with conviction
Taking weak desires, subconscious drives, and the heart’s urges and giving them power: making them real.
Yelling out to the universe what you expect
Placing your order
Making up your mind
A declaration of your resolve to make things happen
A commitment to take action

Intentions Are the Seeds of Your Life’s Garden

Using the law of attraction is much like tending a garden. You have been given a fertile piece of land that can sustain any vision you have for it. It is just a simple, blank piece of fertile land ready to become anything you want.

It is up to you to do what you want with that garden.

You can leave it alone and let whatever happens come along.

You can wish it was a more fruitful or beautiful garden yet accept whatever it ends up being as out of your control.

You can endlessly work to get rid of the weeds, focusing only on making sure nothing bad happens to it.

Beautiful Japanese Garden. Intentions are the seeds in your life's garden.

Or you can plan and visualize your perfect garden. Full of your favorite fruits, vegetables, flowers, bushes, and trees. All placed with the purpose of your health, happiness, and enjoyment.

When you are ready to start creating your garden, it is time to take action.

So, you begin to imagine what you want and plant the seeds accordingly. Each seed is embedded with a purpose to grow and flourish into what you have planted it for. The seed is an aspect of your vision, and it is now on a mission to cultivate your desire.

The wonderful thing about this garden is that you do not have to have the right seeds. All you need to have is a vision. And the desire to turn that vision into reality. The vision and desire you have will infuse the seed with the energy it needs to become what you want. Your belief, faith, and the universe will take care of the rest.

This garden, your life, is your own personal blank slate full of unlimited potential to become whatever you want. And each seed is a well-thought-out idea of what you desire. Placed with the intention of becoming that desire. You can plant as many seeds as you want, and you can put them anywhere you like. They can be specific, or they can be an overall feeling you want to have.

There are no restrictions or limitations to the seeds you can plant in your garden. It is your garden! You can do whatever you want with it, create whatever you want, and have it look and feel however you want. The possibilities are endless.

Why You Need to Have Clear Intentions

Have you ever heard the saying, be careful what you wish for? Have you ever gotten your wish and regretted it? Wishing instead that you had put more thought into it, paid attention to the signs, or understood what it is you were really wishing for?

Person on a swing looking at the starry night. Set clear intentions to attract what you want.

When it comes to working the law of attraction, what you wish, think about, focus on, and the energy you put out there will attract to you. And this works regardless if what you are asking for is good for you or not. Or even if it is really what you want.

The law of attraction is not a sentient being. It does not discriminate, and it is not biased. It simply does its job of providing what you are putting out there.

Under most circumstances being able to attract whatever it is you wish for is wonderful news. Yet having such ability and power means you really do need to be careful what you wish for. In the famous words of Spiderman bestowed on him by his kind and wise uncle Ben, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

So you want to think about what you are asking for. You want to visualize it and live it so you can be sure it is what you really want in your life before you ask for it.

If the seeds of intention are based on what you desire, you need to know what your desire is when you plant the seed. If you just start throwing out seeds, hoping for the best, who knows what you will end up with. You want to place each seed in your garden with a purpose.

Creating and setting intentions allows you to send clear, careful, and well-thought-out wishes and desires into the universe. Making certain you are attracting what you really want into your reality.

Like Attracts Like

The law of attraction does not need your statement of intention in order to work. In fact, it doesn’t need for you to do anything at all. It is always at work regardless of whether you know it or believe it. Just as the law of gravity keeps your feet firmly planted on the ground without any interference from you, the law of attraction is always at work in your life.

Magnet attracting money. Use intentions to make sure you are attracting what you really want.

It will provide whatever you are focused on, thinking about, and feeling. If you act a certain way, the universe will provide circumstances and situations that are consistent with how to are acting. If you wish for money but feel like you are drowning in debt, the universe will provide debt.

You can have a desire or a wish, but if your thoughts have a usual pattern of ruminating and focusing on what you don’t want, your desire will not manifest. It can’t manifest.

Your energy is a magnet and as such, will attract whatever energy is most like it. Like attracts like.

Without some sort of intentional focus, the mind tends to wander, and thoughts are all over the place. As such, many people end up attracting things they don’t want. Things they don’t realize they were even thinking about.

Most people end up blindly focusing most of their energy on what needs to change and what they don’t like about their life. We do this and think like this, so we can fix our problems and find a way out, but this way of thinking depletes our power. The results are getting stuck in a rut that, no matter how hard you try, you cannot get out of.

For example, you may want to attract love and companionship into your life. Yet every night, you go home by yourself and feel lonely. As you go about your usual routine of eating dinner alone and watching tv, your mind goes on autopilot, and you start thinking about how sad it feels to be alone and how much you wish that feeling would end.

Or perhaps you desire to have more money. Yet every day, you check your mail with the expectation of seeing another bill. Or you lie in bed at night thinking about how the debt you have is keeping you from providing for your family.

This way of going about life results in attracting exactly the opposite of what you want. This is because you attract what you are feeling and what you are thinking about. In the examples above, you are feeling lonely or stressing about your debt. So you are attracting more loneliness and debt. Regardless of the wish for love and companionship or more money, your normal thought patterns and way of thinking focuses on loneliness and debt.

You see the problem.

Intentions Give You the Power

Lighthouse at dusk. Intentions give you clear direction.

In order to make the law of attraction work so you can attract the things you want, you need a way to control your own thoughts and change the pattern of thinking you automatically do.

But more than that, you need to change the way you feel and behave. To change all of this tends to be a challenge for most people (at least without years of therapy and thousands of dollars). And, as such, we give up on it. Succumbing to the idea, we cannot change our circumstances.

Intentions put you in the driver’s seat of your creation. They are a surefire and easy way to get out of this pattern and give you the power to create a better life. Why? Because they are easy, enjoyable, and, best of all, they give you direction and a clear focus.

If it is easy to do, you will do it. If it is enjoyable, you will keep doing it. And with clear direction, you can keep your focus on it and change your patterns. All of which will ensure you are going where you want to go.

Keep Going

Now you know why intentions are important and why you need to be using them in your life. They are a powerful and easy way to use the law of attraction and help you know what you want and stay on the right track. They help you communicate your desires with the universe and create something to focus on so you can change your patterns and change your reality.

The next article is about when to set intentions and how to use them in your everyday life so you can raise your vibes and manifest the life you need to walk your life path and accomplish your soul’s mission. Continue reading now.

Do you have anything to add about the power of intentions and how they impact your use of the law of attraction? Be sure to let us know in the comments below.

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