Are You Intentional?
David Freund, Chief Leadership Officer
One of my first emails was titled, “Are You Living with Intentionality?” If my numbers are correct, this was about 130 emails ago (yes, you have been reading my musings for a long time). Back in September of 2016, I asked you to become intentional about growth and development. Those are still very critical for our success, but we need to become even more intentional. We need to fully embrace Intentional Living. We need to stop going through the motions each day. Let me share a few examples.
When you attend a meeting or training, what do you hope to get from that session? By simply identifying what you intend to get from the meeting, you can dramatically improve the value of that session. It’s as if you are alerting your mind to look for details that pertain to the information you are seeking. If you are attending a staff meeting, and you approach the meeting with dread like many do, you will not find anything positive in the meeting. On the other hand, if you attend the meeting with the intention to learn something new or gain insight into someone else’s role, you will be surprised by what you will learn.
Good days and bad days, we all have them. Some people, however, have a lot fewer bad days. They just seem to be up rather than down. They see positive situations where others see negative situations. The key to their success is that they intentionally work to have a good day. Some years ago, I had a young man come into my office toward the end of the day. By his own account, he had had a rough day. My reply surprised him when I said, “I bet you did have a rough day.” As we talked about his day, I asked him to go look in the mirror. He looked as though he slept on a sofa somewhere and simply woke up and came to work. I shared with him that if he woke up, showered, combed his hair, and dressed well, he would feel better about himself and his day would be better. He needed to intentionally choose a good day, act accordingly, and a good day would follow.
Relationships work the same. Whatever we appreciate in people appreciates, whatever we depreciate about people depreciates. If we focus on the negatives, we will no doubt find more negatives, but if we focus on the positives in a person, we will see more positives. It is clearly our own choice. What a great opportunity.
How about you? Are you brave enough to make the choice to live with intentionality? If you are, please join Marisa and me on Episode 95 of The Next Page podcast as we discuss what it means to live with intentionality.
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