Develop Your Intentional Action Mantra
Setting Your Intentional Action Mantra
You need an intentional action mantra to help keep driving you forward when you really want to stop or maybe just take a break.
You need an intentional action mantra to remind you to get going again after you’ve fallen down or run right off the rails.
You need an intentional action mantra to stir up in you the will to go, the fire to fight, and the power of hope to see beyond the storms.
You need the intentional action mantra because sometimes you won’t want to and the key to getting stuff done is to do something.
The Reason to Keep Going
My good friend and intentional action encourager, Tom Reid of the Sustained Leadership WBS (the man quite literally wrote the book on leadership so be sure to check him out), shared that you have to be finished before you are done. ‘If you don’t finish the last 10 feet of a bridge, you don’t have a bridge.”
You may laugh at the simplicity of the statement, but too often, it’s those last 10 feet that keep us from reaching our BIG DREAM goals.
Several years ago, a local community decided they needed a bigger bridge than the one they had. Now, I won’t say it’s because another nearby community recently had upgraded their bridge, but they had so, you draw your own conclusions.
Anyway, this community decided they needed a new bridge even though the current bridge they had was full of character and history (and that’s a whole different can of worms I don’t feel like opening today). So they started building their new bridge. When they got a few feet from the other landmass it came up that they didn’t have the permits to attach the new bridge to the land.
As Tom would say, “they had a really nice pier but no bridge.”
This is the place we tend to get stuck – when a barrier or a blockade or a forgotten permit keeps us from finishing what we started. We give up and walk away – leaving a really nice pier where a bridge was supposed to be.
But, what if we had someone on the team that constantly reminded us of the end goal.
What if we had a voice echoing the truth – that with the right steps you are there – not that you can be there but that you are there . . . just keep stepping.
What if the strength and endurance from seeing the goal as a reality before it was a reality stirred so strongly in the heart that the mind and body couldn’t stop until the truth was reality.
The power of those what if moments resides in the intentional action mantra. When you know where you’re going and you believe it to the point that it is your reality then you are closer to seeing it done than ever before – plus you have the built-in motivation to get there.
- First, you have to define it.
- Next, you create an I AM statement to reflect it.
- Then, you say it and repeat it until it takes root in your knower
- And then, you recognize and define your stalling points.
- So finally, you can use the power of your I AM to break through the stalls.
It seems simple because it is simple. We’ve invested a lot of time and energy and focus making it complicated.
Define.
Believe it until it’s settled.
Seek it until it’s found.
– Kathryn
Define. Believe it until it’s settled. Seek it until it’s found.
Simple – right?
Yes!
Easy? Eh.
Rarely is the journey as easy as the statement, but I do promise that the more you plant the belief in your heart and the stronger it grows, the easier it becomes to make the choice for simple.
It all begins with a belief.
Define Your Intentional Action Mantra
What is it that you want? We’ve talked about defining what really matters and defining success. Now it’s time to solidify your focus. When you hold up all of your dreams, your a little bit impossible and a little bit scary BIG DREAMS, what do you see?
Many years ago, I attended a writing conference hoping that one day I would be able to be a writer. The keynote speaker that year was Vanessa Griggs. I will be forever thankful to her because during that keynote she challenged us to say ALOUD, “I am a writer.”
Over the next several years, I went back to that talk she gave and I thought a lot about how saying it made it a little more believable. Even though I had sold articles and even though I had a regular column in the paper and even though I had an established blog, I still struggled to grasp the truth of my dream.
“I AM a writer.”
The nugget of a dream that had led me to the writing conference in the first place took root with her challenged declaration. I kept saying, “I am a writer.” I even began putting it on name tags. The more I said it and the more ways I found to declare it, the stronger the truth rooted in me until It was my reality.
It didn’t matter what others defined as a writer. It didn’t matter what blockades came up against me. I knew it deep down in my knower and I just kept on being a writer.
So, what is your battle cry? What really matters? What is that BIG DREAM that we are growing up and nurturing one little bit at a time?
Once you have it, it’s time to declare it.
Create Your I AM Statement
I attended a mastermind group that challenged me to come up with a defining mantra. I started out saying what I wanted. “I will be . . .” After a few weeks, I realized that it wasn’t powerful enough. I had to be able to see it to believe it and seeing required the power of I AM.
Instead of “I will be a syndicated talk show host” my mantra became “I am a syndicated talk show host sharing hope with a dash of twisted encouragement on stations across the globe.”
And you know what, before long, I was a syndicated talk show host – with my podcast being picked up by stations in South Africa and on the West Coast of the United States.
It was simple. I believed it. I stated it until it became rooted in me. And then I did it until it was.
Root It in Your Knower
But it’s one thing to say it and it’s another to have it rooted so deep in you that nothing can shake it. And if you are going to hold on to your intentional action mantra through the storms then it needs to be rooted deeper than anything else.
For me, it was rooted and rooted well. I had said it so many times that it was second nature, but when the bad storms showed up – the kind that involves dollar signs and demand notices – then it’s hard to hold on to what seems more like a fairy tale than a bonafide paying possibility.
Okay, now that I’m fleshing this out with you, I am ready to admit that the intentional action mantra wasn’t rooted as deep as I like to believe. It was seeded. It was watered. But it wasn’t really rooted.
I almost believed it. And when things were going my way I almost believed it even more.
But it wasn’t my truth.
Along the way, I had allowed little things to dislocate the roots. The whispers of doubts from those around me. The hints of unworthiness I sprinkled in the ground myself. The preparations for other avenues that kept me from tending to the roots I really wanted to grow.
It all added up to an unstable belief that almost completely crumbled when the storms arrived.
Do you believe it? Do you believe it so much you can see it like it was there right now? Do you believe it so much that it’s as firm in your being as your ability to breathe?
When you get to that place of believe – where it’s rooted so deep it has become a part of you – then you will be able to rest on the settledness of your belief.
Keep speaking it until you are breathing it.
Admit the Stalls
So you defined it. You created your I AM statement. You have settled the I AM into your very nature.
But there will be things that happen that stall out even the most focused of I AM beliefs.
And the odd thing about our nature is that it doesn’t have to be something major. A little piece of gravel can derail the whole journey.
I took a walk the other day, trying to get in the habit of walking more every day to clear my head, get some movement happening, and get some fresh air. About five minutes into the walk, my foot started hurting.
I thought about calling it a day, but I knew I had only begun and I had a ways to go to meet my goal. Still, that pain in my foot persisted.
Finally, I stopped and took a closer look. A tiny piece of gravel had wedged into the sole of my shoe and was poking my foot. It took some effort to dig it out, and I had to pause my walk, but once it was gone the rest of the walk was easier (and my foot was very grateful).
I reminded myself that one step at a time would get me to my goal and even though I’d stopped I could keep stepping. And I did. All the way to my goal that day.
But I could have stopped. It was painful.
I could have not started back, even after I got the gravel out I had the choice to go on back and give up for the day. After all, it was beyond my allotted time for my walk.
I could have talked myself out of walking the next day because obviously, I had the wrong kind of shoes for the task.
I could have done a lot of things – I’ve done the same or similar in the past. Instead, I recognized my stalling points and I had contingency plans long before they became an issue.
Do you know you’re stalling points? Where have you gotten to in the past only to give up and walk away? What blocks caused you to stop building your bridge and to settle for your pier?
Knowing what causes you issues AND being willing to admit that those things cause you issues will make it possible for you to apply your intentional action mantra in those situations to get you going again or to keep you going.
Use the I AM to Overcome
When I realized the gravel in my shoe could stop me, I told myself that I am walking 5000 intentional steps each day so to keep stepping. I began to plan out the rest of my afternoon so I could adjust for the additional time (which really was only a few minutes when all was said and done). But choosing a different dinner plan, I was able to make up the time and keep my schedule on track.
Little moments can be easier to apply the intentional action mantra. It’s just a little moment. It’s just a little time. It’s just a single day.
But when you look back and realize that you’ve pushed your dreams so far back that you almost forgot them, and you’ve allowed your intentional action mantra to whither on the vine, it can seem like an impossible task to get unstalled.
Nine years ago, I launched the #GrowingHOPE podcast. I loved it – everything about it. When I was contacted about syndicating, I was ecstatic.
And now, nine years later, I’m back to square one – at least that’s what the blocks want me to believe. The truth is that I know so much more than I knew back then. And if I will believe, and I will get it settled in my knower, and I will seek it until its found, then it will be.
No. It is because I AM.
Are you?
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