I can still hear her loud bellowing voice in my ears “BE SPECCCCCCIFIC!!”
Every now and then, came another reminder “OUTtention follows INNNNNTENTION!!” Sometimes, I still hear these words in my dreams. She did a good job drilling them into me.
The year was 2003 and I was training to be a Massage Therapist. The bellower was my teacher, instructor and first introduction to the Universe, energy and LOA (although I didn’t know it at the time).
There are 3 things that make a good massage therapist a GREAT one. Training is one of them. Natural intuitive abilities are another. And setting an intention before working is the third.
Think about the last massage you had. A good therapist will work each specific muscle and target certain points along your body. A general rub down just doesn’t have the same effect.
Before even touching the body, I was trained to imagine the lines I would follow, muscles, skin, bones, nervous system, and how with each touch I was affecting not just that muscle, but other related areas. What I was doing mentally was AS important as the physical work and the results showed it.
Going back in time, when I was 16, my dad tried to teach me to drive.
He said the best way for me to learn was to close my eyes, imagine my foot on the accelerator, the clutch and practice releasing slowly (yes, the days of the manual gear shift!). He had me practice this a lot and the days I did, I found myself driving smoother than the days I didn’t.
The agreement came to an end when he told me to look into the hood of the car and learn how it all functioned.
While I don’t believe it’s necessary to learn HOW something works to be able to use it, I’m on board with his teaching technique.
Setting an Intention gives immense clarity to any action. It’s one of the the first things we do to get clear about what we want when we’re manifesting our goodies.
There are many ways you can set an intention. You can state it, you can visualise it, you can feel it in your body, write about it, sing it, get creative about it. What’s important is to pick a method that works for you.
You’ve seen this at work in The Biggest Loser when Helen Phillips lost 140 lbs to win the title. In the middle of the season she said “I’m going to win this thing” and everything changed from that moment on.
Ok, here’s a question for you: What do Olympians like Carl Lewis and Greg Louganis to superstars like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, inventors and scientists Alexander Bell, Newton, Edison and Einstein, actors Jim Carrey and Matt Damon, speakers Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield and visionaries like Martin Luther King have in common?
Yep, that’s right! They ALL use(d) the power of intention and visualisation to achieve great success in their fields.
When Tiger makes a key shot, he’s already practiced it and visualized it more times than we’d like to think about. As he’s still human, here’s a really cool NLP technique video I found online about his performance on the 11th hole and how he could do better (as a bonus, the guy talking has a really cool kiwi accent!)
And finally, you know how I’ve set myself a schedule to make some little-big life changes in 21 days? If not, read about there here. Well, the one thing I’ve been doing is setting intentions about how I want my day to go.
Yesterday I set an intention that I wanted “something fun and exciting to happen today” and took a couple of minutes to imagine what that feels like, working myself into a state of fun, happy excitement.
20 minutes later there was a draw for a contest I had entered just the day before and … I WON!! A $700 train ride for two to Whistler – I was SO excited I was bouncing out of my chair and giggling like a frenzied toddler.
Ha! How’s THAT for intention setting!?
Here’s the kicker – If it works so well, and there’s so much proof around us in every area of life, from sports to acting to losing weight to driving a car, then WHY aren’t YOU using this simple technique more often?
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Got any stories about setting intentions and the results thereof? What works best for you? I KNOW you’ve got some manifesting successes that followed setting a clear intention – a job interview, money windfall, meeting a great girl/guy etc. Please share, I’d love to hear. Thanks!
I think I visualize most of my actions. I see the flow of what I want to happen and the more focused I am the more crystal clear the outcome. Intention with visualization is very, very powerful!
I’m looking forward to what you now get to manifest on your train ride. 🙂
Hey Mark, I just got an image of a crystal clear stream running through the woods, babbling and flowing over rocks, thanks for that visual!
It’s true that most people are visual (esp men!) and so that really works well as a manifesting tool. I like to write and then read what I’ve written plus I talk to myself in the mirror – so I’m guessing I’m digital-visual in NLP terms.
Either ways, it’s so much fun to do 🙂 Thanks for commenting!