When I was an agent for independent creatives, my job was to find great projects, write and negotiate proposals, and facilitate the project from beginning to end ensuring the creative and client felt heard, supported and delighted with the outcome.
Simple right?
I won’t claim every project was a raging success, but I will say my 15+ year career was characterized by WAY more, happy, repeat clients, than unsatisfied one-offs.
While there were lots of factors at play – from loving and respecting the talent I worked with, understanding the creative process, and a commitment to transparency – my secret weapon was this:
I set an intention for EVERYTHING I did.
Whether I was putting together a portfolio to send out (gosh, I’m dating myself), getting on the phone to negotiate a proposal, or stepping into a meeting with a prospective client, I always asked myself what my desire outcome was, and took a moment to visualize it.
If you think this all sounds a little hippy dippy, you only have to take a look at the oodles of evidence (including this article), about how top athletes use the power of intention and visualization to reach their goals.
Interested in using the power of intention to get more of the results you want to see in your business? Here are 4 ways:
1) Write down all the changes you would like to see in the next 12 months (should be realistic, but bit of a stretch). Here are a few questions to get you going:
How much do you want to make per?
How many hours do you want to work per week?
How many clients to you want/need to meet your goal?
What kinds of projects do you want to be working on?
What kind of lifestyle do you want to have?
What legacy to you want to leave?
2) Ask yourself WHY you want to achieve those goals
When our intentions are fueled by a deep desire to fulfill our purpose or make a positive change in the world, we’re more likely to take inspired and consistent action than if they’re fueled by a less meaningful, more self-serving desire (which we all have by the way!).
For example, if your goal is to get 5,000 more Instagram followers, ask yourself why this is important to you and your business. Is because more followers will give you a sense of validation, or because you Instagram is the best platform in which to get in front of, and positively impact, more people? If it’s the first, it’s probably not worth spending your time and resources on. If it’s the latter, knock yourself out!
3) Break it down and set ONE intention
Now pick one goal and write it down. Better yet, announce it to your peers and ask them to hold you to it. I promise you’ll be a thousand more likely to execute on it if you know other people are watching (and silently judging. Just kidding!)
And because we all know a task will take as long as you give it, add a time-frame to your intention. For example, if you’re doing something big, like re-branding and launching a new website as I did this summer you might want to make that a 120-day goal. If your intention is to outline and start implementing a marketing strategy, a 2 week time-frame would be perfect.
You can even set a daily intention such as: today I will write my newsletter and create all my Instagram posts for the upcoming week (that was mine for today!)
Whatever your intention, the action of writing it down, prioritizing and committing to a given time-frame will do wonders for your productivity and results.
4) Take action
We all know that intentions without action are worthless, so why do we procrastinate anyway? Because putting something out into the world is scary. Overcoming our fear of failure can feel like a herculean task, but pushing through is precisely what we need to do to succeed.
Just look at the careers of people you admire (I love Creative Live’s 30 days of genius for getting the inside scoop on my heroes). They ALL do the following:
Keep learning
Cultivate a mindfulness practice
Join or build communities of like-minded people
Get support
Your heroes aren’t made of different stuff from you. They’ve just mastered the art of setting an intention, following through and switching gears sooner rather than later if it’s not working.
Are you ready to join their ranks?
If you’re ready to set powerful intentions AND take actions that make them a reality, I’d love to help you get started. Sign up for a 90-minute laser coaching session with me and we’ll outline your big picture, choose an intention that makes most sense right now, and map out a plan to get you from where you are to when you want to be.
Drop me a note at justine@justineclay.com and write “I’m ready” in the subject line and I’ll email you the details and next steps!
I love this!!!