How To Write Daily Intentions And Actually Stick To Them to Make the Most of Your Week

How to Set Your Intentions for the Day

Start by asking yourself some questions.

• What are your goals for this quarter and/or month?
• How can you create intentions for today to keep you on track with these?
• What are you looking forward to?
  • Pro-tip: Use your answer to help keep you motivated when you have a difficult day. Also, don’t fall victim to the mentality that you’ll be free of bad days — That is an impossible expectation. 

Intention Setting Steps

1. Set the Scene

Make sure you come into your intention-setting session with a clear, uncluttered mind. The best way to do this is to engage in a mindfulness practice beforehand, such as yoga, meditation, or journaling. You may also consider getting out into nature, listening to your favorite tunes, or doing a clearing ceremony.

Once you have cleared your energy, you can start focusing on what you would like to call in with your intentions.

2. Bust Out Your Favorite Journal — don’t be afraid to write in it!

To get your creative juices flowing, think about your goals and how those translate to what you’d like to accomplish in the coming week. In other words, make sure you are planning to work on things that move you closer to your dreams.

If you were unable to clear your mind completely in the last step, it might be helpful to do a brain dump so you can focus on what matters most.

3. Let the Thoughts & Idea Flow

Don’t hold anything back or edit yourself before you’ve gotten anything written down. This is a big one, especially if you struggle to get your intentions written. If you need to get in a little bit of doodling beforehand, go for it!

4. Aim for 1 – 3 daily intentions

You might be gifted with words and find it difficult to exercise brevity. Have no fear—I’ve included some ideas for you to streamline your thoughts. 

This isn’t your problem? No worries. Keep scrolling to the headline below—Are you having a hard time setting your intentions? 

Ideas to help you stick 1- 3 intentions:

• Review your monthly, quarterly, and/or annual goals. Then revisit your intentions. Are they helping to move you closer to your goals? If not, do you still need the intention? Or, would it be best to scrap it?
• Consider moving extra intentions to a master list to be used later.
• You might also consider having a list of default intentions. In other words, these are things that you are regularly working toward.
  • For example, I strive to make my bed every day and to do yoga for at least five minutes. Note: I am not perfect and these things do not happen every. single. day. But, I intend to use them most days.
  • While these are important to me, I am no longer at a point where I have them on my list everyday. Even though I don’t write them down, I still work toward doing them; you can consider them my default intentions. 

5. When you’ve set your intentions, write yourself a love note

A love note will help you keep your intentions at the forefront of your mind, so they don’t get lost in the day-to-day shuffle.

It might be helpful to have your love note posted where you’ll see it regularly. I’m thinking a post-it computer screen, bathroom mirror, refrigerator, or somewhere on your car’s dashboard — obviously not in a place that will hinder or interfere with your ability to drive safely, though.

6. Give it to the Universe

You’ve done steps 1-5. Now it is time to allow your intentions to happen. The keyword being allow — Remember, this is not the type of thing you can force.

Sample Daily Intentions to Get You Started

To help you get a better idea of what intentions look like, here are some samples. If you borrow some of them, that’s totally fine. You can modify them, so they resonate with what you need.

Today, I will…

• speak kindly to myself.
• prioritize my needs.
• take time to sit in silence (or meditate).
• practice mindfulness through yoga, meditation, or journaling. 
• spend quality time with loved ones (or friends).
• process my emotions before reacting to them by journaling. 

POINTERS TO Keep These Things in Mind As You Write Your Intentions 

1. Make sure your intentions are in alignment with your larger goals

It’s important to have a clear vision and set of goals. But it’s just as essential to make sure your day-to-day activities are in alignment with those goals. Intentions are meant to keep you on track with your goals in a gently, reassuring way.

2. Keep it short — No need to write every intention under the sun

The whole point of setting your intentions is to help keep you focused. If you write too many intentions, you might spread yourself too thin or struggle to keep up.

Do yourself a favor and start small. If you have a lot of intentions that come to mind, you can write them down and save them for the future.

If you have too many intentions, consider a running list of backup intentions that you can refer to as needed. This way, when you encounter writer’s block or are unsure of what intention to set, you can read through your list of intentions and find what speaks to you the most.

There’s no need to overthink your intentions because they are meant to be updated, changed, and/or deleted. As you revisit your intentions, if you weren’t able to do thing you can consider one of three directions:

• If you find that the intention isn’t exactly what you need — then make changes accordingly.
• If you still want to do the thing, but can’t right now — maybe you can table the intention for the future when you are better equipped to tackle it.
• If the intention is no longer serves you — get rid of it!

Moral of the story, do what is best for you. Intentions are meant to empower you and keep you focused on your dreams and wishes. If they are not doing that, it’s time to move on.

Are You Having a Hard Time Setting Your Intentions? 

First, I want to let you know that you are not alone. Been there, done that! There can be many that you may feel as though you are struggling. Here are a few things you can do to troubleshoot:

Journal

Gather your thoughts with journaling. Consider sitting down with your journal for a little bit. Or, to talk it out. Some people find it beneficial to record themselves talking as a voice journal.

Here’s the thing, you can’t leave the thoughts in your mind. They must hit a piece of paper, a recorder, or a conversation with someone else. Otherwise, you may continue to replay those words in your mind over and over again. And, that is not beneficial. 

Take a Nature Break

Sometimes we need a reset. A great way to do that is to get outside and be with nature.

I’m not talking city streets in New York with the majestic yellow cabs calling out with their horns.

I’m mean Central Park with the overwhelming beauty of the green plants, grass, and trees.

Take a moment to be present. Turn off your music or podcast. Close your eyes and listen to the sounds around you. Then, take a deep breath and open your eyes to take in the sights. 

Hold Up. You Might be Wondering…

Are Monthly Intentions Better than Setting Daily Intentions or Weekly Intentions?

If you are unfamiliar with intentions, I suggest it’s best to start with monthly intentions. You can still sprinkle in daily intentions here and there.

The hope is that this approach will help keep you from feeling too overwhelmed, leading to abandoning the practice altogether. I don’t want that for you!

Start with monthly intentions, then use them as a guide for planning weekly and daily intentions

A little more rationale on the matter.

When you first start setting intentions, you might feel as though it takes a lot of time. If that’s the case, you may not be super consistent in your practice. Or ditch the practice because you’ve got other, more pressing things to do.

Ease yourself into setting intentions by doing them monthly. Hopefully, you’ll become more confident and feel more like a professional in your ability to set intentions. This will allow you to do them more frequently.

Ultimately, the goal is to set yourself up for success. And that might mean starting with the lowest point of entry (monthly intentions).

On a personal note

While I aspire to write daily intentions, the fact of the matter is I don’t always do it. So, I strive to have monthly intentions to ensure I stay on track with my quarterly goals. Daily intentions are usually written when I feel called to do it, or I’m trying to stay focused on a deadline.

After I’ve Mastered Intention Setting — Is it Best to Write Intentions Daily, Weekly, or Monthly?

Honestly, there is no correct answer here. Do what works best for you.

For myself, I’d love to do all types of intentions — daily, weekly, monthly. Or, at least I love the idea of doing them all the time.

I’m the type of person that’s incredibly organized, disciplined, and lives up to expectations perfectly. Maybe that’s wishful thinking. In reality, there are times I do e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g imaginable in a 24-hour period. This is often followed by weeks of lacking follow-through on anything and everything because I’m overwhelmed with life. So…undiagnosed bipolar is what I’m dealing with over here, which means sometimes I do all. the. things. and other times, I do practically nothing. As a result, I’ve learned to let go of some rigidity with scheduling myself or setting personal rules, such as writing daily intentions. It’s not an everyday thing, but sometimes it might be that.

Here’s the punchline: Write intentions as needed; That’s the best approach.

You might find yourself writing monthly intentions. And, as the weeks follow, perhaps you’ll set an intention for the week. In other cases, you might not have intentions for the week, but you’ll still write daily intentions. That’s fine.

Intentions are not meant to hold you hostage. Intentions are intended to be a tool to guide your actions and decisions.

I’ve got a real-life example for you. As I write this blog post, I am also figuring out what the rest of my week will entail. It’s Tuesday which probably means I won’t write any intentions for the week. I do, however, have a work date with a friend tomorrow. So, we have been texting back and forth about our intentions for the day.

The important thing here, if I do not follow through with my first intention, I will simply let it go. No need to allow negative self-talk to creep in and make me feel less than others because I didn’t make progress on my blog post.

Instead, I choose to focus my energy on the fact I honored my needs. And, embraced my desire to tap into my creative side instead of writing — because sometimes you can’t stare at words on a computer screen anymore!

Do You Still Need to Dive into Intentions on a Deeper Level?

I’ll admit it—this blog post is definitely a high-level approach to setting your intentions.

So, if you are only starting to dip your toes into this world of intention setting, more information might be helpful — Especially if you are the type of person who wants to know e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g there is to know (raising my hand with you!!).

In that case, take a time out from this article and check out this blog post on everything you need to know about powerful intention setting, plus examples. Or, take a moment to grab this intention setting worksheet I created to help you break down the process.

One Last Thing, Can We Take a Moment to Talk About To-Do Lists?

You might be wondering how your intentions differ from your to do list. Here’s the thing, to do lists can become monoliths that never seem to get done. But, I don’t really need to tell you that. Right?! 

As an example, the other day I crossed something off my list that had been there for over 7 weeks. And, I don’t even want to admit to you the other task I’m avoiding… it’s been there much longer (uh, we are pushing 15+ weeks).

My to-do list is so complicated that I can’t write it down on a single piece of paper. And, I cannot use traditional to-do list methods to keep track of everything. (Thank goodness I discovered Notion—it has changed my life!!!)

While I admit that to-do lists can be a helpful tool, we don’t always utilize them properly. Here are a few things we do wrong:

• Writing down things that we never intend to complete,
• Allowing tasks to stay on our list for too long (you know who you are!), or
• Keeping our to-do list in multiple locations (uh hem, that napkin with thoughts scribbled on it, and the random piece of paper that’s crumpled at the bottom of your purse.)

Conclusion

Intentions are a great way to set the scene and make the most of your week. You will also find that by setting weekly intentions, you will have an easier time focusing on what’s important and staying on track.

Keep in mind — as you practice setting intentions, you will learn to refine your abilities. So, if your first few intentions aren’t great or you have a hard time writing them, don’t sweat it. Stick with the process, and you’ll get the hang of it sooner or later.

Now, Show Me Yours

Alright, I showed you mine which means it’s your turn!

What are your intentions? Where are you writing them? Do you think you’ll be writing daily, weekly, or monthly intentions after reading this? 

Share some of your intentions with us in the comment below. We’d love to read them. Who knows, you might inspire someone else!