Being Intentional to Experience More Joy

How to leverage intentions and affirmations to transform your life

 “Are you paying attention to what you are paying attention to?” asks Jason Silva.

Most of the time, I am not. I go about my day responding to events and people the way I am used to. I know how to be and behave out of habits. I have learned from experience.

If this is helping me navigate my familiar world, it can be a hindrance to my ability to change how I respond to be more in alignment with what I say matters to me. Most of my behaviors come from my programming. I tend to behave as I was shown and told to by my parents, teachers, society. If I don’t pay attention, my attention will be directed to what ‘they say’ is important or to what in my environment is catching my attention. Which may not be what is important to me.

If you are like me, you sometimes catch yourself acting in a way or saying something that is not in alignment with what you deeply care about or how you want to be with others. I have responded “No!” with an impatient tone of voice to my son’s request to play while I say I value being present and caring for my child. Looking at my son's reaction, I realized that I was not paying attention and acting in alignment with my values.

The lesson: most of our behaviors are driven by our habits, our emotional state or in response to external stimuli without conscious attention. 

Habits vs heart desires

The issue if that your habits or default ways of operating may not be in alignment with your heart desires. I believe our heart always leads us towards growth and connection. But our brain’s main job is to ensure our survival. When faced with constant threats and uncertainty, our defense mechanisms take over, shutting down our connection to our heart. We start acting out of fear, rather than from love.

All that we deeply desire is moving us towards joy and love. So we need to train or direct our brain to respond to our heart desires, not just protecting us and keeping us stuck in old ways and habits that have become unhealthy for us. One way to align our brain with our heart is through using intentions and affirmations. 

Unconscious selective attention

Our brain is always scanning our environment for cues of safety and threat. Our brain filters tons of information and only assesses and brings to our conscious attention what is deemed important to us, in this moment. The rest goes unnoticed to our conscious awareness and we act on autopilot mode. We operate on automatic mode or out of habit most of the time to save energy.

This data filtering role is played by our reticular activation system, a region of our brain stem. The role of this system is to play the intermediary between information detected by our senses and the information reaching our conscious awareness. It triages what comes to our attention.

But how does this system decide what is deemed important to us?

Part of the information that will be brought to our attention is driven by our fear system. When our defense system is triggered, what becomes important to us is to assess the threat and lead us back to safety as needed. Same with problems: once we identify a problem, our attention is directed towards finding a solution to it. We may not consciously worry about it all the time, but our brain is constantly scanning our environment for information that will help us solve the problem.

What will get filtered in is dependent on what is important to us in the moment and also influenced by our belief system. If we believe we are smart for example, we will notice comments and behaviors that confirm our beliefs. Our brain seeks coherence and our ego being right, so together they will either seek information to confirm we are right or rearrange our worldview to fit the information we get (but this is more demanding, so we prefer confirming than changing). This filtering process is mostly unconscious, but we can choose to give it clear instructions regarding what matters to us.

Be clear on what you want to experience

And this is where the magic operates and why it matters to understand how your brain works. If you are not intentional about what you want to focus on, your brain will decide and it will do so based on your primary emotions (feeling safe or not?), experience, thinking habits, assumptions and beliefs. 

When you try to change your life and achieve new goals and vision, it may be difficult to find how to achieve that and what to do because you don't see the next step. You don’t notice opportunities and can’t find the support nor the resources. This is because your brain does not yet know what to look for and thus, it continues to filter information based on your current world view, beliefs and thought patterns.

If you want to find your way forward, you need to bring your vision of the future you want or your goal to the center of your attention and tell your brain that this is important to you. You have to help your brain see what this vision is made of and feels like. You need to tell it what to focus on.

Energy flows where attention goes…

Since you are asking your brain to change its focus, you need to help it see, sense, visualize what it is you are looking for, what you want to experience. The more familiar you become with that vision, the better equipped your brain is to select from the information coming in what is important to you and supports your vision.

From clear vision to intentions

Given that our emotional state also influences what our brain will focus on, i.e. whether it will focus on protecting ourselves or open-up to exploring the world with curiosity, it is important to choose how we want to show up at any given moment. This is what it means to set intentions: choosing how we want to be and what we will pay attention to.

"...goals are usually action-based whereas intentions are heart-centered. So when setting intentions, speak to the heart from your heart." (A Soul Called Joel) 

For example, before starting a meeting with clients, I may set the intention to be present and open to what they have to say. By doing so, I am connecting to my heart’s desire and choosing to direct my energy towards what I want to experience rather than letting it be guided by what I experienced just before or being reactive.

“An intention is a directed impulse of consciousness that contains the seed form of that which you aim to create.” (Chopra)

We focus on how we desire to be and act in the moment, not the outcome. We take control of our selective attention system.

Leveraging affirmations to rewire your brain

Intentions are not strong enough to change the focus of our mind. Our brain has strong thinking habits and deeply held beliefs.

This is where affirmations come in. The more we repeat to our brain what we want to believe and what matters to us, the better it will be able to focus on it and rewire to align our new ways of thinking and beliefs with our deep desires.

"Intentions change the disposition of our hearts and affirmations specify the focus of our minds. When these things support each other, we let go of the pattern of self-sabotage, build coherence and transform our lives." (A Soul Called Joel) 

You set intentions to choose how you want to be and show up (your attitude and emotional state). You use affirmations to remind yourself of what is important to you and what you choose to believe in. Together, when aligned and supporting our vision for our life, they have the power of moving you forward one step at the time. You start acting in coherence with your values and vision. After a while, you find yourselves unconsciously being and living what you desire without conscious attention to it!

Watch out for self-sabotage!

Your control tower, i.e. your brain or your ego, likes coherence. It does not like uncertainty and always aim to control what is going on to protect the status quo or its understanding of the world. As mentioned before, our brain prefers to confirm its current understanding of the world and your place in it rather than spending energy to rewire and fit in new data and experience.

Changing requires effort, focus and energy.

When you start to be and think differently, your brain or ego may rebel and try to sabotage your best intentions. You may hear yourself saying: "How can you think you are good enough when all that we have witnessed was failures?"

When this happens, go back to your affirmations, or write new ones that help you focus on experiences you have had that support your new story.  These could be experiences where you have been successful or have overcome difficulties. It depends on your vision and goals.

You may also choose to find examples of other people like you who did what you want to do and use that to help your brain (your ego) see it is possible for you too.

Clear vision, intention setting and affirmations: a trio you want to leverage to change your life, move towards your dreams and experience more joy and love!

After all, what you pay attention to determines your experience.

“My experience is what I agree to attend to." (William James)

And if you want to experience more joy, peace and love, you need to direct your attention to what your heart truly desires.

" Attention is the most basic form of love. By paying attention we let ourselves be touched by life, and our hearts naturally become more open and engaged." (Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance)

In other words, the best gift you can give yourself and people you love is your attention. Be intentional about it!

Don’t forget to act!

Intending something and moving towards this intention (striving) gives us satisfaction, one of the three “macronutrients” of happiness along with enjoyment and meaning or purpose (as per Dr Arthur Brooks). Moving forward towards our vision, goals and intentions generates dopamine release in our body that gives us motivation and courage to persevere despite challenges and efforts required.

If words have more energy than thoughts alone, actions speak louder than words. To change your habits, results and experiences, you need to change your thoughts (vision and intentions), reinforce them by writing or speaking them (using words, affirmations) and take small meaningful steps in alignment with them.

When your behaviors are in alignment with thoughts and beliefs, you are in coherence.

When you experience coherence, you experience well-being.