When Intention Meets Action
_______
🕓 10 Minute Read
TL;DR
You don’t get results by focusing on results, you get results by focusing on the actions that get results. Good outcomes follow good processes. When you fall in love with the process of intentionally defining your desired outcomes, taking action comes far more naturally.
Intentional actions are never wasted, they simply might not yield the exact results we have in mind. Our agency has found this simple fact to be true in dozens of situations.
Let's simplify it in analogy form:
Imagine you’re rustling some bushes, hoping that a new opportunity will fly out.
Eventually, you get exactly what you wanted. A new opportunity *does* fly out, but not from the bush you’re rustling — it came from the one you didn’t even touch a few bushes down. The movement you created right in front of you had a ripple effect down the line, sparking another proverbial opportunity-bird (just go with us) to reveal itself into your sight line.
This is what it looks like when intention meets action. By simply putting focused, intentional effort into the actions that you know are productive and change-inducing, your circumstances often have a proportionate response.
As we've heard it said by Donald Miller, NY Times best-selling author, world-renowned speaker, and successful entrepreneur, "The only thing you can control in your business is how many emails you send each week." What he's poignantly describing is the equally weighted combination of wanting or needing to do something and then actually doing it.
Arguably the most critical ingredient in this recipe is getting laser-focused on the result you want upfront, understanding the actions that unfailingly yield those kinds of successful outcomes, and making the dedicated effort to continually refine as you improve and progress.
Here are three simple, but effective methods for creating the kinds of rhythms that prepare you for the right opportunities (and avoid the bad ones).
1. Know what opportunity looks like.
You’ve got to know what you’re looking for — otherwise an opportunity might pass right before you without even realizing.
As with many things in creative business, this comes back to positioning — dig into the nitty-gritty of what makes you tick, and determine the most ideal client you’re able to serve.
Consider creating an ideal client profile that you can reference. Pretend you’re making a social media profile of your best client: What do they do? Where do they hang out? What makes their day? How do they feel about their clients?
When you know what the absolute best case scenario looks like, you’re able to make calculated risks and compromises when a situation arises that’s closely aligned with what’s important to you.
2. Do more of what’s important.
When attempting something truly challenging, we often fall for the illusion of "the easy way out" — the magic weight-loss pill, the no-code website, the guaranteed success. Our intentions are good, but the method is foolish.
Let's be real: You already know exactly what you need to do to reach the next level of your goals — its just really hard.
We prefer the novelty of a quick solution over the simple truth that if we steadfastly continue to do things that have a proven record of working, we'll get there eventually.
So, when it comes to choosing an intention-driven approach, it's more about the result-driven process than "manifesting" the outcome.
This means having an internal litmus test for opportunities: "Does this align with the process I know will work, or is it a distraction?"
Far too often, "pretty good" opportunities keep us from taking on great opportunities — fight the temptation to succeed at something that's not even worth doing at all.
3. Take small actions, daily.
Start with the larger goal and work backwards.
Let’s say you want more, better paying clients. Instead of heaping all of your client-attracting activity into a single day per month, hoping that your focused efforts will transform your business overnight… simply integrate some smaller activity into your daily routine.
Maybe that means liking, commenting, and following five new people on Instagram every day. It would take less than ten minutes to do, and gets you in the rhythm of connecting and networking with like-minded individuals that can unlock bigger, better opportunities for you and your venture.
There are no hard and fast rules here. Find some measurable action that you know for a fact is a result-inducing activity, and schedule it into your day immediately.
The reason intention is required, is because these kinds of tactics won't just naturally fall into place — in order to get results, you must invest in your own process constantly, and without "fear of missing out" on lame opportunities that were never right for you anyways.
As we seek to create meaningful change in the lives of our clients and surrounding communities, be aware of your level of intention. The possibilities that seem miles away may just be closer than you think.
