Intentions, Affirmations, Decisions

Do you set an intention before you do something? I often do. I like to ask participants in my classes to set an intention for the state that they'll be in during the class, or for what they choose to get out of the class. I've noticed that when people do this, they tend to get more out of the class.

Have you ever done an affirmation? If you have, you probably know how powerful they are. In case you've never done one, it's a positive, present tense statement of something that  you want, that can be controlled by you, as if it already existed. I'm a huge believer in affirmations, because a few of them have really changed my life, including the one that brought my wonderful husband to me. (Want to know how that can work for you? Call me for a session.) Others have changed my relationship to time and to myself. 

Just today, though, a very wise woman pointed out that there is something even more powerful -- a decision. Normally, we think of decisions as being choices of what to do or not do. She was talking, however, about deciding what to think and what to believe. Yes, you can choose your beliefs, that is, you can choose what you take as real. You can decide what to believe about the world -- and about yourself.

No matter how cavalierly we use them, words have actual meanings -- meanings which carry the energy from their root words, and from the billions of times the words and their roots have been used.  So it's important to pay attention to the distinctions between these words:


Intention is from Latin intendere, to stretch out for or aim at. So when you intend something, you are saying, 'this is my goal -- but I might not make it'. You are allowing the possibility of failure.

Decision is from Latin decisio, a cutting short. The implication is that you are cutting off all choices but one. This manifests in reality. When you decide, you are only allowing that one thing to happen.

Affirmation is from Latin affirmare, to present as fixed, or make firm. So in order for an affirmation to work, you must first decide that this is so.

It seems from these definitions that you can have a general intention, but for actual results, it's best to make a decision, which you then restate regularly in an affirmation.

Neurolinguistics teaches us that nominalizations, which are nouns made from frozen verbs, rather than real things you can touch, are less powerful than the verbs that spawn them, because they hide lots of information. That is, you can 'make a decision' and it's a complete thought, but if 'you decide', that is not a complete thought. It requires you to state what you decide. Similarly, you can 'have an intention' while you must intend something in particular, and you can 'do an affirmation' while you must affirm something specific.

To get results then, what works best is to decide something, and then to affirm that decision regularly.

One Reason Your Affirmation May Not Work

It's often said, "Be careful what you ask for -- you might get it." And I've noticed, over the years, working with clients, friends and myself, that a better way to say this is, "Be careful what you ask for -- you WILL get it." This is sometimes referred to, with a rueful laugh, as the Law of Unintended Consequences.

I think I've figured out how this works, at least for those of us who use affirmations to create what we choose in our lives:

1. An affirmation is a positive, present tense, first person statement of what you are choosing.
2. By repeating it over and over, you are implanting it as a belief in your unconscious mind. And, as Seth (channeled through Jane Roberts) said, about 30 years ago, you create your reality through your beliefs.
3. The unconscious mind is very literal, so it will draw to you, or have you notice in physical reality, the manifestation of the words of your affirmation/new belief.
4. Because it is so literal, the unconscious mind will screen out everything BUT what you are stating in your affirmation.

And I've only just now realized point #4! A case in point: for many years, I have had the affirmation that "By being who I am and doing what I love, I now prosper beyond my wildest dreams." And I am who I am, in pretty much all circumstances. And I do what I love a lot. But I also feel like I need to do things like honor agreements, even when I don't particularly feel like it, and do chores like brushing my teeth, even when I don't feel like it. For the last couple of years, I have tried many, many ways to market my services, to very little avail, that is, business has not increased on the trajectory that I would prefer. No matter how hard I worked, no matter what I tried, it didn't seem to help.

Now I get why! My very literal, unconscious mind, was saying, "If I am who I am, and do what I love, I'll prosper." Period. It interpreted my doing something I didn't love, as me not choosing prosperity. Every time I made myself do something I didn't want to do, it shut down the prosperity thereby negating all the actions I took! Duh!

What is the difference between a vow & an affirmation?

A friend of mine, who definitely enjoys her wine, was talking about a vow she'd made recently -- "No more hangovers!" And a funny thing happened: she was at a business/social event, drinking moderately, when she felt nauseous. She left the party, went back to her hotel room, had a glass of water and fell asleep, only to dream that she was milking a rattlesnake, symbolically pulling the poison from her system. And she hasn't had a hangover in the months since making the vow.

So obviously, vows can be powerful. They tend to be simple. declarative statements, structured in absolutes. Sometimes, they're stated in the positive, though they're usually stated in the negative, such as "No more..." They're often stated in the future tense, such as "I'll never... again." They are often stated in the third person, such as "This ____ stops now!" And they're generally made just once.

Affirmations, on the other hand, are positive, present tense, first person statements, which are repeated over and over till they become true. They're powerful, too.

So how can these two opposite ways of expressing a clear intention both be so effective?

My guess -- and it is just a guess -- is that an affirmation comes from a superficial part of the self, which desires change, while a vow comes from a deeper part of the self, which recognizes an internal change has already happened, and just needs to manifest in the exterior world. An affirmation is a declaration of what you choose, as if it already exists. A vow is a statement of what already exists on the inner planes, declaring itself to the outside world.

Succeed in the new year!

I’ve been doing a year-end review of my goals and intentions from last year (I did better on some than others, of course), and setting goals and intentions for the coming year. (Goals are specific targets, while intentions are more ways of being.) And of course, both of my clients yesterday chose to focus on what was coming up in the next year and how to set intentions, set goals, shape affirmations and take actions to move ahead in their desired directions. This is an important thing to do every year, whether you do it at your birthday, which is great for personal goals, or at year-end (either calendar or fiscal), which is probably more appropriate for a business. Here’s why:

In a study of 1979 Harvard Business School graduates, those graduating were asked, "Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?" Only

- 3% of the graduates had written goals and plans;
- 13% had goals, but they were not in writing; and
- 84 percent had no specific goals at all.

Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings were amazing. The 13% of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% who had no goals at all. And the 3% who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, 10 times as much as the other 97% put together. (Info from “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School”)

It occurred to me to write to you to suggest that you might want to



- clarify your choices for the next year,

- set some goals and/or intentions,

- make sure your affirmations and your action plans support your choices, and/or

- psychically look at the lay of the land in your business (the competition, your partners, or your negotiations) or personal life (love life, anyone?).

I’m offering you 5 free minutes (on a minimum 20 minute session), with all of my tools, tips and techniques, to support you in all of that. This offer is only good for appointments booked between now and Jan. 3, 2008, as its intention is to help you start the new year off right. (omg, can you believe it? 2008!)