Intentions vs Goals

Goals are part of our everyday life. They are normal. They are cool. We need them. We see the refrigerator is empty, write a shopping list for food, go to the store, buy the food, restock the refrigerator. In doing that everyday task we have achieved a real, definable, believable goal. There is nothing magical about goals. We need them to survive and grow. In business I set budgets and forecasts. Maybe right now you have a goal to get a bigger house or a newer car. This is normal human behavior. However, these are NOT Intentions.

An Intention is totally different. Intention comes from the latin word intendere or intentio, both meaning “stretching or purpose.”

If goals are like stepping stones across a pond in order to casually and safely take you from one side to the other with that being the sum purpose of the stepping, then Intentions are like strapping a rocket on your back to shoot across an ocean at lightning speed in order to impact the other side with your purpose.  

Intentions stretch us. Intentions match our purpose. When that happens we get to a vibration frequency of knowing and Intentions become effortless.

What is knowing?

In Three Simple Steps I explain it this way:
“In my experience, after many years of studying and teaching goal-setting techniques to eager sales and marketing people, as well as practicing the three simple steps, it seems to me that there are three levels of emotion that attract success.

The first level is desire. Desiring something creates a powerful energy that can magnetically attract better things into our life. Desire, however, is often vague. We may desire a better life or a different job without specifically being sure what that would look like. I often hear people state that they want more money or a nicer house. Because of the lack of specifications, we might not get exactly what we deserve and are capable of, but we’ll get a better set of experiences. When those arrive, we feel a sense of relief that life is finally looking up.

Then there is belief. The more we understand something, the more we start to believe in it. Many goal setting techniques recommend baby-step goals with the thought that as we achieve each one, we build confidence in ourselves and our goals, which leads to greater belief. I often see this play out in the workplace. When someone gets promoted it is not normally a surprise to them. They believed it was coming because they became so familiar with the role and their suitability for it over time and with their proximity to it. In most cases, however, the person who was promoted was just as capable of doing that job the day they joined the company. They just did not believe it. As belief grows we get excited, and our stomach twitters with anticipation. Belief brings wonderful new experiences into our life, and when they arrive we feel like celebrating.

Finally, there is a sense of knowing. This is an exponentially higher emotional energy level that comes when we are familiar with all the specifications, feelings, and senses of the object of desire. There is no excitement because there is no doubt about its attainment. The removal of doubt comes about because we have clarity in the detail of what it is we want. This level of emotion can be felt in the many things we take for granted in our lives. For instance, I am so familiar with making Crème Brule from a certain recipe that I have a complete sense of knowing it will always turn out great, and the compliments I get are expected. Simple. When those creations turn up in our life, we simply acknowledge them with a quiet sense of gratitude.

What step three is about is taking something we have never had or done, something we have little familiarity with, but would create in our lives if there were no impediments to its attainment whatsoever, and creating a sense of knowing about its attainment. That is magic. That is the three simple steps in action.

Traditionally taught goal setting techniques can be effective at raising our levels of emotion from desire to belief. That will definitely help you pull yourself out of the quicksand, and improve your quality of life. I do not believe that it is sufficient for achieving the American dream. You need to get nearer to the state of knowing, and the process of setting intentions rather than goals achieves that.

The Difference Between Goals and Intentions.

A goal is something we do not have that we aim to get. Our understanding is that the desired object or experience is separate from us. Traditional goal setting techniques show us how to creep toward the object in baby-step goals, each step meant to build up our confidence until desire turns into belief.

An intention is a goal, but with all doubt about its attainment removed. Baby steps are not needed because there is no doubt about getting what we desire. Instead of creeping toward it, we can simply sit back and let it come running to us. The main difference, therefore, between intentions and goals is direction of effort. With goals, we push energy toward the object. With intentions, we pull or attract the object to us.”

Okay, so now this starts to feel like the Law of Attraction. I find, however, no scientific support for LOA. What I find is scientific evidence of the RAS loop and the illusion of time. I also find scientific evidence for the laws of energy. Before we continue with the differences between goals and Intentions, we need to side-bar a little about energy phases.

Although energy doesn’t actually exists as a ‘thing,’ we observe change over time and call it energy. The more we observe, the more we see that there are personalities of energy. We give them labels and the most common we use as humans are masculine and feminine energies.

When I speak about masculine and feminine energies and the transition between them, I am not talking about two separate things and this is not a gender discussion. These are labels. Energy moves in whole waves. We often describe a wave like a S-curve. We assign a peak and trough. Some think one good and the other bad and others think vice-versa. As such, we describe masculine energy as linear, methodical, slow, analytical, but oppressive. We describe the feminine energy as breathlessly spinning, fast-paced change, nurturing, intuitive, but ruthless. These are all just labels on the same, single S-curve. Energy does not have separate parts. On our planet, there are centuries when one aspect dominates over the other. In our short human experiences, there are times when we rely on one over the other.

In reality, we are all born subject to the one wave, which is equally masculine and feminine. As a man, I might be tempted to rely more on the masculine aspect. I am, however, a psychic entrepreneur who has been blessed to have strong feminine spirits in his life, so I value both aspects of the same wave equally. That balance is my competitive advantage, the secret to my entrepreneurial adventure and indeed all aspects of my life. I tap into the masculine and feminine energies equally… or at least try to.

What does that mean in reality? I certainly make more intuitive decisions today than analytical ones, and with the pace of technological change, that is an essential skill to develop. These days we don’t have time to create a working team and spend days in a meeting room analyzing. We need to react. The malls and high streets with their boarded-up windows are a glaring example of what happens if we don’t change with the energy of the times. Intuitive decision-making is a skill that we all have naturally, but it takes working on a few tools and techniques to blossom.

At the negotiation table, I have ditched the dated win-win masculine approach in favor of a trust-based method that is founded on feminine energy and is instantaneous in its nature. It is more like ‘get on board or get left behind’ than win-win.

With customers, clients, and vendors I use new techniques based on quantum physics principles such as quantum entanglement and the observer effect to find and select the best matches and then to monitor performance remotely.

Then again, I am a very methodical, analytical organizer of structure, contracts, business plans, and protocols, and I can analyze complex data and hone in on the core issue or opportunity. Balanced use of both energies is the key to both success and life balance.

I often write on social media about the current planetary shift from masculine to feminine energy, and the importance of those attributes that we usually associate with our feminine sides, such as intuition, adaptation, and compassion. It draws comments such as one that I got on Facebook: “Dude, you’re a dude, what do you know about female energy?’

It is a common reaction and a common enough misunderstanding. This is not a conversation about gender. We are all impacted by the two reflections of one energy that we label differently.

On the planetary level, masculine-style energy has dominated since the middle-ages, and we are now in a period of transformation to the opposite side of the wave when feminine energy rises for an equal period of time. That sounds like one humongous tsunami, but the planet is 4.6 billion years old and humans have been standing on it for the blink of an earth eye. A few centuries of time are neither here nor there from a planetary perspective. The planet doesn’t care, but as interlopers making our home here and creating magic through entrepreneurship, we need to pay attention to the shift.

Because females are likely more in touch with feminine energy in this new era, which sages call the Golden Age of Transformation, it is indeed a ripple back to women’s time, and it will be so for centuries to come. Leaderships won’t change overnight and certainly not without a fight just as they didn’t in the middle-ages when things shifted the other way and history makes us shudder with stories of inquisitions and witch trials.

Whereas in 1980 not one female had reached the top executive ranks of the Fortune 500, by 2021 forty-one had. That is still only 8%, but the trend is what matters.

In senior management positions in 2020, the ratio globally was 35/65 female to male. China boasted 51% female in leadership positions. USA lags most countries with just 21% but since 1980, American firms have created almost 4.5 million management positions of which 2.6 million have been filled by women. Of course, this leads to lots of discussions especially when we also consider pay gaps, but that is not the remit of this book. This book is about energy and the trend to feminine energy and how to balance the psychic with the non-psychic.

This feminine phase is also the energy of village-centric and decentralization. A major shift is underway and it will disrupt every aspect of life. If you are female, you should rejoice and align. This news should give your confidence a huge boost, and your career a real advantage. If, however, you are male, you need to rethink how you approach business and life, reawaken the skills of the feminine and change your approach in management style and business structure.

This shift also means that the more masculine technique of targeting through step by step goal setting needs to shift to the more feminine style of rocket back-pack Intentions.

Intentions have rules that are non-negotiable:

1. Powerful. Intentions are for dreams, not everyday tasks, career promotions, slightly improved lifestyle. Intentions create awe, stomach churns, giddiness, sleepless nights.

2. The big secret is to crush time. Imagine the Intention as already achieved and feel how that feels.

3. Intentions can only be for you. You cannot Intend anything for any other person. This is not negotiable.

4. Positive. Intentions are for what you want, not against what you don’t want. For instance you are for financial freedom not against debt.

5. Never ever share an Intention with anyone. I’ll explain why later. For now just trust me.

Those are the rules of the five Ps and they are non-negotiable.

Additionally they must stretch you and have purpose:

Next we are going to put it all together in a single tool called Timeagination. Before you rush there, however, it is smart to take some time out and think again about the journey you have been on to get to this powerful point.

The knowledge (has it all sunk in?)

The practical applications (are you using the tools?)

TQT (are you being disciplined daily?)

Getting into nature (are you scheduling this with importance?)

Figuring out what you want (do you feel awe now?)

Commitment ritual (have you committed?)

Window shopping (have you scheduled some events?)

Time (are you using present/past tense language now?)

Intention setting (do you fully understand the difference between goals and intentions?)

Please be honest with yourself. The timeagination tool is powerful and the best I have to offer, but to work effectively you have to say ‘yes’ to all the above. If not, what is the rush? There is no judgement. Just re-do the activities you skipped and come back here later.

Your life is at stake so please be honest.

It is time to practice writing Intentions. Follow the guide in the slides and double check what you write to ensure it hits the five Ps. have fun with this. Use your amazing imagination. There are no limits to how many Intentions you have and you can write them out individually or wrap them into a script as I show in the slides.

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