jMoore!

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions
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My focus gets scattered when I try to pin down the power of intention as a Tuesday Topic. And focus is the deciding factor when you worry about the execution of the million different intentions you are juggling. David Goode posted about intentions just today and said

Intentions are meaningless and have no value unless acted upon

I think intentions have value in that they are the currency we use with the Universe when we ask for support. In the Who, What, When, Where, How and Why of my life, “Intentions” are part of the Why. How many times have you heard “She means well”? That sounds to me like “she” had a good intention (probably in regards to fixing somebody), but her execution created problems along the way. So in her case, the intention may have even gained enough support from the Universe to become real, but the action involved in the quest was misguided or poorly planned.

Where am I going with this? Beats the hell out of me! But when I started out, I had a few concrete examples of how I’ve seen intentions used for success and for failure and I wanted to sort them out. If I were painting right now instead of posting, I would have reached the point where I would have to rename it as a “study” instead of a picture. So let me play with those examples and see if I can get to my point.

• Remember when newspapers were a source of news, as in facts? When they started entertaining us in the same way TV, Radio and magazines do, they started the downhill slide to the failures they are experiencing now. The world is quickly losing any common source of real news because newspapers “intended” to remain current with the times and while they were evolving, they made a succession of decisions and executed a series of blueprints that stripped them of what they did well and made them a poor player in the world they were trying to imitate. Example of good intentions and some missteps in the execution.
• Think about that friend that always has advice for every circumstance and never “gets it” that her misplaced concern has you royally pissed off almost every time she starts in. She means well. In her value system, the best thing she can do is point you on her road to perfection. Example of good intentions (actually not according to MY value system) but the perfect execution on her part does not have the desired effect.
• Now, here’s the essence of every get rich quick scheme: People would love to believe in the power of telling the Universe what you want and having it land in your lap later this afternoon. If intentions truly have power on their own, then this should work, right? I think it actually does if you learn to combine intentions (valuable ones) with the rest of the package.

How does that work? The combining of valuable intentions and the execution part of the package CAN actually create tremendous results, even when you’re unaware of what you did. Here’s the key in my mind: When you intend something very specific, you have created a support ticket with the Universe. Please note that I did not label this a good intention or a bad intention. I think the Universe is very value neutral in this regard. So whether you are intending revenge or charity, you have a very specific action item in mind and can see it clearly.

Now, the rest of the package. Focus is important. We sift through hundreds, if not thousands, of intentions in our own mind every day. We sort and re-sort and prioritize over and over again to meet our needs. If you want your intention to result in a creation, then you have to keep it in mind whenever you make decisions. Decisions are the other piece of the execution package. Whenever you decide between two actions, the weight of your intentions has to be a part of the decision, or that intention has been replaced by something more clearly in your focus. Clear as mud? I was afraid of that.

• Intention: what we think we want the end result to be.
• Focus: Which of all our intentions are really important to us at this moment in time?
• Decisions: Each decision we make has power to implement one intention or another. If they are in conflict, then the combination of focus and decision sorts it out for now.

Bringing it back to business: These intentions might sound similar (or even familiar) to you, but to the Universe they are different and when it’s time to focus and make decisions, one is actually easy. Another is probably impossible to execute and the one in the middle could be easily combined with focus and decisions to create something very real.

• I am going to get rich building websites and promoting products and never worry about money again
• I am going to build three small websites with the same business plan, but different products and see which one makes more money.
• I’m going to be famous!