The Power of Intention?

Have you ever heard of the power of intention? I hadn’t, until about 15 years ago.

After learning more about it, I realized that I’d been studying it since I was a teenager. It was known by other names back then. Some people called it the “power of positive thinking”, or “the self fulfilling of prophecy.”

I had read books by Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller and I was intrigued by what they taught. They were very convincingly telling me that I could change my entire life by changing my thinking. It made a ton of sense.

Over time I applied everything I was learning. What they and so many others were teaching was turning out to be true.

My life seemed to go in the direction that I was thinking. Some times the change was slow and subtle, some times it was profound and quick.

The word intention appears to come from the Latin word, “intendio”. Intendio means to “aim at”, or “stretch toward.” It turns out that a lot of the ancient Latin and Greek words related to archery.

An archer “aims” the bow and arrow at the target. Their intention is to hit the target and hopefully the bull’s eye.

If the archer missed the bull’s eye, it was called, “hamartalos.” That word was translated in the Bible as “sin.” It meant that the archer missed the mark.

It became clear to me that there is a lot wrapped up in that little word, “intention.” It’s not some mystical, outer space type of power. It’s very practical.

Your intention includes your beliefs, interpretations, expectations, your attention, focus, choices, decisions, mindset, attitude and so on. They are all part of the same concept: We human beings will tend to drift in the direction that our mind is thinking.

Some times we think we’re aiming somewhere and wind up some place else. That’s because our conscious mind is aiming one place and our unconscious mind is aiming someplace else.

We tend to wind up where our unconscious mind wants to go. The unconscious mind is thought to be about 1,000 times more powerful than the conscious mind.

Intention is a power that controls what you think, how you feel, how you act and react. It controls what you eat, how much you make and the success of your relationships. It’s that powerful.

Since it’s that powerful, it might be really a good idea to learn how to manage it. That’s what this entire blog is about. That’s what johnrmasoncoaching.com is all about.