How to Intend Your Future
Over the last week or so I’ve found myself soul searching and reflecting around the future. I’ve been asking myself a question I hadn’t really considered for years.
What did I used to do when things just seemed to happen?
Not through luck or coincidence or because life was easier. Just in the times where opportunities, experiences and the right people seemed to arrive exactly when they needed to.
With the Lion’s Gate Portal approaching, there’s a lot of conversation about manifestation, abundance and creating your reality. And whilst I understand all of that, I realised I’d drifted away from something much simpler. It wasn’t manifestation that I used to practise.
It was intention.
I’d forgotten something I already knew
When I first started consciously exploring personal development back in 2008, I had a ritual every year.
I’d sit quietly.
I’d write down the experiences I wanted over the next twelve months.
Not necessarily things, experiences too.
People I’d love to meet. Places I’d love to go. The work I wanted to create. The way I wanted to feel.
Then I’d sit with those intentions. I’d see them. I’d feel them, almost like watching a film in my mind.
I’m naturally very visual, so that worked for me. If you’re not visual, perhaps it’s a feeling instead.
Looking back now, I realised something, those experiences nearly always happened. Not because I sat wishing for them, but because I’d pointed and directed myself towards them.
Somewhere along the way I stopped
This is the part that really made me think. At some point I stopped doing it, and if I’m really honest… I think it was when I lost myself a little. I muted myself in life. I wasn’t consciously directing where I was heading anymore.
I was surviving. Showing up. Doing what needed to be done. Keeping everything moving, and not really asking myself…
“What do I actually want now?”
It’s a bit like sitting in the passenger seat instead of driving. You’re still moving, life still happens, but you’re no longer choosing the direction.
Survival changes more than we realise
That realisation helped me understand something else: Survival changes our frequency.
Whatever that survival looks like.
Bereavement, Divorce, Parenting, Illness, Caring for someone else, Starting a business, Financial pressure.
Any significant life transition.
When you’re surviving, everything becomes about getting through today. Your nervous system isn’t looking for possibility, and instead is looking for safety.
And I think we underestimate how long it takes to come out of that. We expect ourselves to bounce back quickly, to think positively.
But perhaps before that can happen, our whole system simply needs to feel safe again.
I can honestly say that’s what the last few years has felt like for me. Peace has gradually returned. And with that peace has come capacity.
Capacity to think, to ask bigger questions and to imagine the future again.
Intention feels different
I don’t think intention is about pretending. It’s not “fake it until you make it.” It’s not forcing yourself to believe something that feels impossible.
For me it’s much quieter than that. It’s simply saying…
“This matters to me.”
“This is who I’m becoming.”
“This is the direction I’m choosing.”
From there something interesting starts to happen, anything that’s no longer aligned seems to reveal itself.
Sometimes opportunities appear.
Sometimes people leave.
Sometimes new conversations begin.
Sometimes you’re simply asked to make a different decision.
Whether you see that as energy, psychology or simply paying more attention doesn’t really matter. The experience feels similar.
The athlete already knows
I often think about elite athletes. You’ll hear sprinters talk about already having run the race hundreds of times before stepping onto the track.
They know the finish line. They’ve already experienced crossing it.
So when the starting gun goes… they’re simply catching up with something they’ve already accepted as possible.
That’s what intention feels like to me. Not forcing the future. Meeting it.
This year feels different
This year has felt like a year of renewal. There are lots of conversations around astrology, energetic shifts and collective change at the moment. Some people resonate with that, others won’t.
That’s okay. For me, they simply remind me that life moves in seasons. There are moments where we’re invited to begin again.
We can ignore those moments and carry on as passengers, or we can consciously decide:
“This is where I’m heading next.”
That’s where I find myself today.
Not because everything is perfect, but because I finally feel I’ve returned to myself enough, with the peace to begin intending again. And that feels exciting.
A question I’m leaving myself with…
As much as this article is for you, it’s also for me, because I know how easy it is to forget. So today I’m asking myself the same question I’ll leave with you:
When was the last time you intentionally created space to decide what you truly want next?
Perhaps that’s where everything begins.
Not with manifestation or techniques. Instead it begins with one quiet moment where you remember you’re allowed to choose the direction of your own life.
Reflection Questions
If you trusted your future self, what would you choose today?
What experiences would you genuinely love to create over the next twelve months?
Have you been directing your life recently, or simply responding to it?
Can you recognise a period where survival quietly replaced intention?
What has returned now that perhaps wasn’t available to you a year ago?
Key Takeaways
- Intention is about direction, not control.
- Creating space to think is often the first step towards creating change.
- Survival mode naturally limits our ability to dream and plan, it isn’t a personal failure.
- As peace returns, so does our capacity to imagine, choose and create.
- Whether you view it through energy, psychology or neuroscience, clarity changes the decisions we make.
- Your future is shaped by the direction you consistently move towards, not simply by what you hope for.
Practical Actions
- Set aside twenty minutes this week with no distractions.
- Write down five experiences you’d love to have over the next twelve months.
- For each one, write why it matters to you, not what it looks like.
- Spend a few quiet moments imagining or feeling yourself already moving towards each experience.
- Ask yourself, “What’s one decision I can make this week that aligns with this intention?”
- Return to your list each month and notice what is beginning to unfold.