How to Use 'Intention' as a Superpower in Business

Before we dive into this week's post, I wanted to let you know that this week's post is brought to you by Alive Success and Alive Success is my signature group coaching program. It's a six-month program where I will help business owners stop settling for the default life and start intentionally creating the business that they are capable of. Imagine making decisions with clarity. Alive Success is supported by myself and a group of like minded business owners that understand exactly what other business owners are going through.

During our time together, we work through our adventure, and we stop off at all the different stops to help create an incredibly profitable business. If you're interested in coming to join us, the next cohort is open in September. Hit the link below for more details.

What Does it Mean to Create a Business With Intention?

This week we're going to be exploring what it actually means to create a business with intention. What does that even look like? Where do you begin? Let's dive in as I share my top tips to create a business with purpose and intention.

What does it really mean when we talk about building a business with intention? For me creating a business with intention is about consciously creating and making decisions based on our values and beliefs for the business that we want to create. We need to be incredibly mindful and conscious of the decisions we make in our business, and when we're considering the choices that we make we have to do so with purpose and intention. To me, that is the definition of building a business with intention.

Why do we need to do this? Why bother? From my perspective, it empowers you to make choices in your business. It empowers you to make choices that will allow you to direct your business in the way that you want it to go. It also creates fulfillment and when we live with purpose and create a business with purpose and intention, we end up feeling a lot more joy and fulfillment out of that experience.

Remember, we spend a lot of our time in our business and when we create businesses it saps a lot of our day, not just our physical day but our mind and being aligned to what we create. Doing it on purpose creates a much bigger sense of joy, well-being, and happiness. That to me is the groundwork for creating a sustainable business that will last a long time. So now that we know what building a business with intention actually is, and why we would want to do it, let's just explore a little bit about what that looks like.

Default VS Intention

We have an option. We have the option to build a default business or we have the option to intentionally create our business. The default option is to build a business based on meeting society's expectations or the expectations of your friends or family or it might be it's not even a conscious decision that you've just fallen into creating a business. Perhaps you've just coasted through creating your business and it looks what it looks like through default and you haven't made any conscious decision to get there. It's where you've ended up, and the problem with that, even if that brings incredible returns in revenue and monetary value, the real underlying problem that brings, is when you miss creating something that's really aligned to you, you can end up feeling unfulfilled so much so that you're constantly looking for other ways to bring that joy and fulfillment to your business.

You've potentially built a business based on somebody else's values or somebody else's beliefs. Perhaps you've just kind of floated into this business based on opportunities that came along that you didn't necessarily go looking for on your side. Whilst that might not necessarily be a bad thing, when things are made easy for us we tend not to question things too much. Maybe you've made lots of decisions to create a business that actually isn't aligned with you at all because you haven't really been that intentional or purposeful in a particular direction.

I want to relate this back to when I set out to have a corporate career and didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do. That was pretty much the script throughout my whole career. Even at every development or personal review I just never had that end goal and never saw myself in a specific position or a specific role. The reason for that is I was just so misaligned with what I was actually doing. However, I was still really successful. But I had a default career, I had been given promotion after promotion. I had been invited to go and work in places, I had been asked to apply for certain roles. At that moment in time, it was very all very well, I but I didn’t really know what else I wanted to do.

This might seem like I had a really great opportunity. There were opportunities for more money and travelling. It was exciting and I went for it. However, after 10-15 years, I was really unfulfilled. Whilst from an external perspective, I was doing well and had a lovely life, on the inside, I wasn't, I was living a life and a career built based on somebody else's version of success. I had fallen into the default career without even knowing it because I had made no conscious intentional decision about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go.

Whilst I made those conscious decisions to accept those jobs or to apply for them, it was driven by a desire for an external reason. It was more money, it was better opportunities to travel, and it was a better location. It was better benefits and all those things were external reasons. It was never because I was wholly driven for that role or for that career. That’s what drove me to have a complete meltdown about what I was doing. I ended up in the whole personal development adventure that I went on after that because I just couldn't continue anymore, working in a role that was so unfulfilling to me.

That was how I felt for a long time before I realized and recognized exactly what it was that was driving that feeling. I thought it was the place I was working so I changed where I was working. I thought it was a role that I was doing so I changed what I was doing. I just couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what was driving that underlying feeling of unfulfillment and not being happy I didn’t realise that I hadn’t created that career for myself. I hadn’t consciously, intentionally created that career.

Now I feel passionate about people building businesses with intention, and a business that is aligned with them. Yet I see time and time again, that people create businesses and they do a lot of what they think they should be doing, but more often than not, somebody else’s way. It might be that they started a business because they saw an opportunity and it went really well and then another opportunity fell their way and that worked out too. A lot of the reason behind this happening is from an external perspective of monetary return, or it could be an opportunity to give your family a better life in a better location but there's nothing really aligned and fulfilling about these decisions. So when we feel that underlying feeling of oh, this just isn't for me, this isn't giving me what I need it to give me and it doesn't feel right, it could be that you realise you’ve created a default business instead of an intentional one.

How About a Creative Business?

Let's talk about a creative business. This is one way we created with intention. We've been really purposeful and driven about what we're creating and why we're doing it and we understand that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to have it all figured out. You know exactly where you’re going. You know exactly the steps to get there. However, despite that, you still might not be getting where you wanted to get to. This is about understanding what your beliefs are, understanding the values of the brand you're trying to create, and knowing exactly what you stand for. What are you bringing to the world? What is it that drives you? What is what puts a fire in your belly? What are you passionate about? What is it about the business that gets you out of bed in the morning?

All that stuff I'm talking about doesn't excite you by accident. That stuff excites you because it aligns with your intrinsic values. Building a business based on things that make you is going to be magical versus creating a business that might bring more money in but equally makes you feel miserable and you don't want to turn up and do it.

You can have a business that you love and make a lot of money at the same time. It doesn't have to be a compromise. So let's have a look at how you actually go around building a business with intention so we know what it is and we understand why we'd want to do it. We know the difference between the default and the created. Let's have a look at exactly what you can do to start to build a business with intention.

Building a Business With Intention

1.

The first thing I would like to say is just slow down, slow down and take a minute. When we are constantly rushing ahead and feel that panic of I need to keep going, I need to reach that point by this time, or I need to get more of this and I need to do more of that, we don’t leave ourselves time to think. We are literally going 100 miles an hour, regardless of whether or not it's in the wrong direction. We are not listening to what's going on with ourselves. We're not listening to our instinct and our gut to say, well, this isn't really right. This doesn't bring me happiness, I don’t like what's going on here. This doesn’t feel good. We don't even slow down enough to feel those things until it's too late.

When it's too late, is when we probably hit burnout. It’s when we probably end up hating our business. I want you to create a business that is jumping out of bed on a Monday morning despite knowing there will be days that are tough. So number one is slowing down. Listen to yourself. Listen to your instinct. Listen to your gut, listen to your body. What is it telling you? Get off the hamster wheel for a minute and just have a little listen.

2.

Number two, once you slow down you need to understand what you are listening for. I want you to get really clear on what the values your business stands for and what do you want to create. When you think about your business and your clients reactions or feelings, what do you want that to be? Think of a brand now that makes you feel good. It might be a car brand or it might be a business that you know or a cafe you visit often. Just think of a brand or a business that makes you feel good. How do you want your clients to feel after working with you? Get really intentional about creating that experience. To do that, you need to understand what those core values are and what you stand for. If you stand for transparency and integrity and quality, how are you bringing that into your day-to-day? How are you creating that in your business?

If you tune into them, you are creating a business that aligns with you and feels good. If you are, you're intentionally creating a business. For example, if I want to create a business that is built on the quality of my service, I put a lot of time and effort, and attention into creating a quality service. I am really intentional about getting my clients results through good quality service and that's really important to me. Therefore I spend a lot of time invested in that. That's what building a business with intention is about. What experience do you want your clients to have? What really means something to you, what does your brand stand for?

3.

So that was number two, now on to number three, knowing why you're doing something. I don't mean, know exactly which steps you're taking to get to a certain point. I mean, knowing why you're doing what you're doing every day in your business. If you're showing up every day, creating posts on Tik Tok and Instagram and LinkedIn and Twitter and whatever it is you do and that's just an example, why are you doing that, what is that driver? Well, actually that's my social media plan and it's driving people to my call to action to come and sign up for my newsletter. I'm really focused on increasing the number of people in my community so they know when I’m doing something.

Whether you're posting on social media, concentrating on marketing, or if it’s the services you offer, every single thing you do you need to know why you are doing it, so that you can do it with intention. This applies even if you're doing it to test something out, or even if you're doing it because you're not really sure what else to do. Understand that actually, this is why you're doing it, to try it out. You've seen if it works, you're going to measure it.

So ask yourself, what is the purpose behind this? What am I trying to achieve? How does this feed into what I want my business to be known for? What's the point of this? Because if we aimlessly post on social media setting ourselves up with 20 different services that we offer, it is literally a scattergun effect. It's like throwing spaghetti at a wall. What we are doing is leaving it up to hope and chance that we build a business that feels good, so get really super clear on what it is you're doing and why you're doing it.

The last thing I want to leave you with today is something that I say all the time to my clients. It really does change the way you think about things if you get into this mindset and ask yourself if you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? You are making a choice every single day. This comes back to what you do on a daily basis and how you plan your week, how you plan the month and how you do your strategy for your yearly plan. If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? So, if I'm saying yes to showing up on all the social media channels every single day, I'm saying no, to having the time to invest in building a community on a deeper level, because I don't have that amount of time to build that connection on a deeper level if I'm trying to be present across all platforms.

So I'm saying yes to showing up on every single platform, but I'm saying no to a deeper connection on one particular platform. It might be if I'm saying yes to this client who pays the bills, but I absolutely hate working for them. You're saying no to creating space for a dreamy ideal client to walk in. If you're saying yes to working 14-hour days every day, you're saying no to a healthy work-life balance and a sustainable business. Therefore every single thing that you do back to your daily actions, if you’re yes to this what are you saying not to, and ask yourself if you are okay with that. If so, that's fine because that is a conscious decision. You are consciously making that decision and not the vision and end goal that you're working towards.

Don't get me wrong. Some days you might think I haven't really got a plan. I'm just going to do this or do that. That needs to be the exception, not the rule. If you're creating the business every day like that, you are heading straight for the default business because you are being reactive. You will react throughout the day to day and to what comes in your door. You are not being proactive. You are not being intentional. You're not building your business with purpose, which directs it to the end result that you're looking for. So building your business with intention allows you to take control and choose the direction that your business goes in. It is the difference between actively taking part in how to create your business and how to create your reality versus being a passenger on the ship. Right?

You are guiding the ship, you are directing that boat. No one is going to come along and save you. No one's going to come along and create that incredible business. You have to do it for yourself. You do that by standards, building it with intention.

You might be reading this thinking, crikey, I fell into that default business. What do I do? The next decision, from this day forward, is to be super intentional. You're going to make purposeful decisions. You want to think about the choices you make in your business and what that really means. Empower yourself to make decisions and choices in your business that will take you in the direction of what you want to achieve and the vision of what you want to create. Allow yourself to take clear action towards your goals. That will create an intentional business that feels aligned with you and it will allow you that fulfillment and happiness and joy that you crave and will create a highly successful profitable business that feels good.

Creating a business this way will stand the test. So I hope I've given you some food for thought. The Power of Intention is phenomenal in a business. So tune in and build your business with intention.

Come and hang out with me on LinkedIn, please say Hi! I would love to hear from you!