There’s huge power in writing out your intentions, or intention journalling. If you’re running an online business, but keep getting stuck, I would highly recommend it. It’s so easy to get caught up in routines and habits which don’t get you where you want to go. You think over the long term they will serve you, but what if they don’t?
If you’ve been doing the same things for a while, but they aren’t taking you to where you want to be, start journalling your intentions on a daily basis. This can be a simple mantra such as:
“I now make 10 sales a month/week/day“, or whatever feels appropriate. It should be something which motivates you forwards, and perhaps feels a little out of reach right now.
It doesn’t matter that it might not be true right now. Just that it is believable enough to repeat on a daily basis.
The Power Of Intention Journalling – Limiting Beliefs
You may be aware of limiting beliefs. Those are beliefs which you may have picked up from your childhood which no longer serve you. They are still alive and kicking often because they were hammered into you by a parent with their particular mantras and “programs”. Think about something a parent might have said when you were young which limited your life somehow, for example:
- Life’s a struggle
- Money doesn’t grow on trees
- Money is the route of evil
- You must work hard for money
Those are just a few examples of limiting beliefs which are often picked up in childhood. They lay the foundations for the circumstances in your life through subconscious programming. It can take many years for them to appear, but the route cause may be a limiting belief which was repeated many times to you as a child.
Remember at school too, when you had to repeat things over and over to remember them. The times tables, spellings or even when you’ve been in trouble!
The Power Of Intention Journalling – Installing New “Programs”
Limiting beliefs can hamper your attempts to change your circumstances because they are “hardwired” into your subconscious mind. So no matter how hard you attempt to change things on the “outside”, your inner world continues to create hardship because of a limiting worldview/belief.
So for example, if you’re intending to create more abundance financially, but your limiting belief is that “money is limited” or “life’s a struggle”, it might always seem as though you never quite “get there” and you always find it difficult to make money no matter what you try. It’s no wonder, that’s the case if you’re running this old program.
You can shift these old paradigms by bringing them into your conscious awareness and replacing them by some new more powerful (and positive) ideas.
That’s what intention journalling does. It gives you something to repeat daily which is going to change your paradigm from the inside, rather than just struggling against old limiting beliefs on the “outside” of life.
The Power Of Intention Journalling – Choosing A Powerful Intention
To choose a powerful intention to use as a mantra, find something you want to achieve or bring about in your life. So, for example if you’re building an affiliate business, it might be to make more sales online.
Here’s one of mine that I used for a while:
“I now make 10 or more affiliate sales a month”
I wrote it out every day at least 10 times. It also became a mantra I used regularly where I just repeated it regularly (inside my head). At the time, this was a good intention for me because I wasn’t quite making that many sales on a regular basis. However, I knew it was possible because I had made that many on occasion. If you choose an intention which is too far fetched for you to believe, you may have more conflict over using it.
Ideally choose an intention which scores 10/10 for desirability and 10/10 for believability. If you don’t believe it, you’re likely to discount it and if you don’t desire it, you’ll likely give up using it before it has time to take effect.
It’s worth pushing yourself here too as to what is possible. So stretch yourself a little and as you repeat your mantra, notice what comes up.
The Power Of Intention Journalling – Observing
As you write out your intention each day, notice what comes up for you. It might be some limiting ideas or conflict. Notice this and “tweak” your intention accordingly. You can also imagine how your life will look once you have achieved your intention. This is also a useful exercise (visualisation). See also my article focus and inspiration what you need for affiliate success.
However, it’s also important to suspend your disbelief a little. Set an intention which when it happens you will know that it is because of this work you have done in setting your intention. That might mean stretching what you believe is possible a little. However, you still need to make a habit out of writing out your intention every day. So if you are in conflict with your goal ,because you don’t believe in it, you’re unlikely to keep up with the practice.
There’s a great book which goes into more detail about this process by Stuart Lichtman. Stuart was an MIT professor who came up with a process he called Cybernetic Transposition. He “transposes a success from the past, and places it into a future event in your mind“. This is done through using what he calls meta stories, similar to the intention writing discussed here.
A “Flag” To Your Unconscious Mind
What this process does is “flag” up your goal to your subconscious mind so that it looks for solutions even when you’re asleep! So if you’ve been trying (and perhaps failing) to succeed with making sales in your affiliate business, this is definitely worth doing. All the attempts you make consciously are still going to come under the control of your subconscious belief system and programs.
So if you have a negative belief which is holding you back somehow, you may be unaware of it. No amount of hard work consciously will make things change. You need the conscious mind and the subconscious mind working together in partnership.
This is where the power of intention setting comes in. Make a daily habit out of this and do it for at least 30 days consistently, writing out your intention at least 10 times daily, more if you can. In Stuart Lichtman’s book, he recommends writing out your “meta story” 100 times a day.
After several weeks of doing this practice, or even sooner, you should notice some ideas coming up. Make sure you do them and follow through. These will be subconscious suggestions based on the intention you have set for yourself.
The Subconscious Mind
The subconscious mind is powerful and will bring about your intentions whether you realise what they are or not! By setting specific intentions for your affiliate business, you are consciously letting your subconscious mind know exactly what you want.
Most of us are running programs we known nothing about and then complain when they materialise in the world! We complain, focus on the negative things which we don’t want to bring about, but then they show up in our lives.
The subconscious mind doesn’t care what shows up! It simply obeys the commands of your programs and brings about events and circumstances which are congruent with the messages you convey!
If you spend all the time grumbling about life, focusing on the bad things, what you don’t have, and your lack and limitations, they keep showing up because you keep giving them your attention! To make change you need to consciously shift away from this pattern towards a more positive outcome which you truly desire.
The unconscious patterns of thought (and intention) are running the show if you let them. Intention writing is a means to change these to a very specific outcome which you definitely want to achieve.