How to create an intentions journal

I created my first intentions journal for 2019. It was the very end of 2018 and I was feeling like I wanted to make the most of the year ahead, but it was difficult to extract from my head what I wanted to focus my energy on. I had been reading a lot of Jen Sincero and Denise Duffield-Thomas and felt excited about the idea that I could manifest the life I wanted to live, I just needed to get clear on what it was. So I decided to create a journal to help me work through it all. I wanted to set myself some goals and give myself something to work towards throughout the year. So I made an intentions journal, and with us facing the dawn of another decade and with 2020 stretching ahead of us I decided to do the same this year too.

It had to be something I wanted to pick up, re-read and add to regularly. I made myself come back to it in the times when life distracted me away from my goals for a while. And I’ve found it useful to have a tool that can act as both inspiration and motivation but also mind management. Oh, and if you’re reading this later on in the year don’t think you can’t start until next January - this can definitely be started at any point and can run for as long as you want it to, I just enjoy starting the new year with a fresh focus and I figured you might too.

Getting started

I was always a stationery geek at school. I loved a new pencil case and pens, and the first few pages of a new notebook were sacred. So head to the stationers, channel your inner me and find a notebook that you love. Mine has to be something I find beautiful enough to pick up every day, but also size does matter. My perfect journal is something just bigger than A6, kind of square, soft covered and with lots of pages. Also I think my spirit animal is a magpie as I’m drawn to anything shiny. I like pages that are lined as I’m more of a writer, but if you’re a drawer maybe go for plain paper so you can doodle or sketch out your intentions too.

I also bought a book of patterned papers that serious crafters use for decoupage, I just use them as my way of beautifying my notebook. I love cutting and sticking more shiny pretty things into the front of it and adding a title page and inspirational quote. I’m pretty basic when it comes to things like this and I’ll happily admit it, it makes me very happy when I open up the cover and see my pretty shiny pages.

Your dream day

Last year I dove head first into listing out all of my intentions section by section. This year I decided to write out my ideal day as the initial thing in my intentions book. This is a great exercise to do, and is simply a case of writing out what happens in your ideal day from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. Where do you live? What’s your home like? What time do you get up? Do you work out? What do you eat for breakfast? Do you have a job? Are you self employed and working from home or do you have a job that you head into the office for? Who do you interact with on a daily basis? What do you do with your evenings or free time? No detail here is too small and it’s exciting to dream big so capture it all! It will help you to be able to really visualise what your dream life is like, and on a more practical level it will be able to let you see some of the smaller changes you can make to your life right now.

For example, if your ideal day involves making sure you eat a healthy breakfast at home before you go to work, does that mean if you wake up 20mins earlier you can fit that in? Or rather than waking up earlier can you make yourself some time in your schedule for breakfast by pre planning your outfit the night before? If it’s part of your dream there has to be a way you can start to make that a reality!

The thing with starting your intentions journal with your dream day is that you can get really excited about it and set out your other intentions not only with the same excitement, but also with the idea for them to play into this dream day. Live intentionally this year to get yourself closer to that day. And keep re reading it. Keep reminding yourself of what your dream looks like every day. It will keep your energy levels up high and keep you focused.

My intentions

Once I’ve had fun imagining my dream day I split the next part of the journal into sections like the following:

• Career
• Home
• Love life
• Travel
• Finances
• Health and fitness
• All the other stuff

Feel free to split these out however makes sense for you, but these are the areas of my life I want to be making conscious effort to change or achieve in.

I then start a new section and I think about all the things I want to achieve in that area. I write these out as intentions, and the language of this becomes very important. I start each sentence with “I will…” Saying that you are going to do something is the ultimate in being intentional, and actually putting pen to paper is incredibly powerful. As with the dream day you can get really detailed with this, and have fun with thinking through any dreams that you have for the year. Where do you want to travel? Who do you want to go with? Do you want to change your career? Buy a new house? Change your health and fitness habits? If you’re single do you want to find someone? If so, what is that someone like? And if you’re with someone, do you want to improve your relationship, and if so then how? Again no dream is too big or desire too abstract!

I also love thinking of all the small things I want to do too, even the ones that seems really silly but that I know will bring me a lot of joy. On my ‘Other stuff’ list last year I had “I will see Hamilton” and “I will have afternoon tea at Sketch” which is a fancy restaurant in central London I had wanted to eat at for years. It was like once I’d committed to them in my journal it made it easier to find a way to do them, and I spent my 34th birthday having afternoon tea at Sketch and then going to see Hamilton and it was a bloody lovely day!

Journaling

After I’ve sent all my intentions, I use the journal however I feel like I need to month on month. January 2019 I used as a gratitude journal, February I asked myself 3 questions each day:

1. How do I feel today?
2. What do I need to hear today?
3. What was good today?

Then other months I used the journal to work through trying to manage my mind like my issues with self worth and self sabotage. Or I just used it to write letters to myself to empty my brain. Some months I didn’t use it at all, and later on in the year I used it to check in on what intentions I had achieved already and what intentions may have changed and evolved over the year. I like to think of it as a mind management tool, it’s a safe space where I can help myself untangle the truth behind a lot of the internal chatter in my head and ultimately help me get over myself and closer to my overall goals.

Summary

Of course I didn’t achieve all of my intentions last year, but setting the intentions gave me a focus that I hadn’t had in previous years. Having somewhere to refer back to them over and over again helped me to keep them front of mind and I feel like it ultimately helped me achieve more than I may have done without.

Also seeing what I can do when I put my mind to it has given me a real boost of self confidence and belief. Like I know I can get through a 10k run because I’ve done it now!

It’s been really fun to set new intentions this year and learn a little more about myself - see how my priorities have changed since last year and what intentions I still want to achieve versus what new intentions I now have.

I know how people can feel about goal setting and journaling, but to me this feels far more logical than new age or hippyish. Set your goals, manage your mind, work through solving your problems to get closer to your dreams. Live the life you want to live and live it intentionally. And then maybe doodle about your perfect man in a notebook, because that’s fun too.

S xx