How to Create Intentions That Stick

A 3-Step Process to Find Your Pain-Points

Kicking off the new year inevitably sparks thoughts about change; inspiring ideas around how you can bring some level of transformation into your life and work. Maybe you’re creating resolutions, aspirations, or intentions? I’ve traded in resolutions for intentions, finding them more realistic, compassionate, and achievable as I aspire to do more or less of something.

As I’ve been reflecting on 2024 with a number of people, we’ve taken inventories of what we did, the things we learned, and wished we had (or hadn’t) done. Something quickly became clear in these conversations: the bulk of our intentions were almost too obvious; too simple. I’m not saying they weren’t valuable – but the deeper we dove into what motivated us to come up with them in the first place, we realized we hadn't spent enough time on a key ingredient to make them sticky: our pain-points.

A few “pain” themes I noted:

• Places where there’s too much friction, making things feel harder than they needed to be.

• Things we used to enjoy that weren’t lighting us up anymore – now feeling like more of a burden than a source of satisfaction or joy.

• Activities, objects, or relationships we’re ready to let go of.

I’m guessing that reading these brings at least a few things to mind for you, with some needing more exploration to answer. Maybe some provoke discomfort – pulling you to look at things you feel you don’t have energy for right now. Rather than letting a bias for action take over (where you quickly pass through your reactions), what might it be like to spend some time here?

Integrating a few steps in your intention-setting process will make the endeavor even more valuable. Allowing you to confront the realities of your circumstances, consider alternatives, and gain clarity, focus, and freedom.

Teasing Out The Pain

If you’re looking to create intentions that tackle your pain-points and truly stick, here’s my 3-step process to get you started:

1. Create the first pass of your intentions. Even if it’s high-level or the feel grandiose, put them down on paper/screen.

2. Identify your pain-points. Tease them out by asking questions. A few examples:

   First-Pass Intention: Spend more time doing business development.

   Pain-Point Questions: What’s getting in the way of me doing business development? Are my current approaches are working?

   First-Pass Intention: Build better relationships with my direct reports.

   Pain-Point Questions: Do I really know what my direct reports really need from me? What’s most important to them right now?

   First-Pass Intention: Use LinkedIn more effectively.

   Pain-Point Questions: What are my real goals for using LinkedIn? What does “more effectively” look like?

3. As you answer your questions, challenge your immediate responses to them. Are you actually hitting on the ultimate reason for creating the intention in the first place (the change you’re looking to make)? Take a step back to discern what obstacles (both internal and external) are in your current path, and if your intention needs to adapt to address them.

   Where might you be making assumptions? Or excuses? Invest in investigation! What are your responses telling you about what you need vs. want vs. should vs. feel obligated to do? What is the problem (or tension) you want to solve?

   Work through your reasons, beliefs, and keep tweaking your intentions as you go.

Turning Pain Into Opportunity

I’m reminded of what I learned early in my career as a sales person: the best solution you can provide your client is the one that addresses their pain. I believe the same is true for ourselves when we’re trying to create improvement, or integrate positive change.

By identifying the pain in your life, you’re then able to minimize (or even prevent) it by going to the source rather than simply using a band-aid. In turn, using pain-points as the motivation for your intentions gives you clarity — directing your energy toward what really matters while multiplying the changes of you making the change you want (and need!) happen.

As Khali Gibran wrote “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”

What intentions might help you to break free of pain and realize an amazing year?

⚡️Happy new year, all! ⚡️

🎧 For more ideas around intention setting, check out my Courageous Intentions episode of my podcast The Courage Effect more ideas and inspiration.

If you’re looking for support to work through your pain points and make your intentions a reality, I’d love to have a conversation about how we might partner through coaching or consulting.

📣 I’d Love to Hear From You! Share your thoughts/comments and let me know what topics you'd like to see explored in future posts and podcast episodes.

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