Witches talk a lot about setting intentions. You want to put intention into your stirring while cooking to super charge your meal. Setting intention in your art can help you create a ward that looks just like a painting or a sewing project. Making sigils takes intention to ensure that the sigil does what you want it to do. But what is an "intention"?
I struggled for a long time to understand what that word meant in the spiritual sense. Finally, one day it clicked, that it means the same mundanely as it does magically. Intention, according to Merriam-Webster, is a determination to act in a certain way, an objective or resolve to do something. Basically, intention is a fancy word for having a goal. Not sure why that hung me up for so long, but that is my brain for you.
So when you are stirring your morning coffee - set a goal for how the day is going to go. When you are making a sigil, clearly define the end result you want from that energy. One of the things I have learned through painful experience is that I am not very good at setting and meeting my goals. Which means, I am not very good at setting intentions in my magical life. I am resolved to fix it (see what I did there?).
Daily Goal Making
I have the beloved task of helping two fully formed humans figure out how to human. This is in line with teaching myself how to human - which is much harder than it sounds. Every day we sit down with our notebooks and set goals for the next day and discuss the goals for the current day. We discuss where we were successful and where we failed so that we can learn how to do better next time. It is a judgement-free conversation that is laced with strong accountability and self-reflection. Basically, it's family shadow work at its finest.
We have the kids and ourselves set a 30 day goal. Something we know will take some time to truly master (such as getting a good sleep schedule going) but that we will not have to focus on forever.
Then the adults will set recurring daily goals for themselves (this is a bit of a stretch for the kids and is therefore optional for them). This is something that should be done everyday, but we often forget to do. Examples of this are exercising for 15 minutes, or remembering to work on our blog posts....
Next, we have the daily one and done goals. Usually, everyone picks 2-3 things they want to get done the next day. Some will be quick wins and easy things such as:
Put away my laundry
Play outside
Read a chapter in a book I've never read before
Research college majors
Go to the library
Clean out my backpack from school
All of these things can be done in a short amount of time and can often be confidence boosters, as they are easily accomplished with some effort.
Finally, we set affirmations for the next day. Often based on the opportunities for growth seen on the prior day. These "I am" statements help to refocus us when we are hitting a roadblock in our goals, or are starting to feel bad about ourselves for missing the mark on something.
I am calm
I am respectful
I am kind
I am helpful
I am loveable
I am enough
Here is what the pages look like:
Date
30 Day Goal
- The goal itself
- Note about how that goal went
- What we can improve on
- What we did well
Recurring Daily Goals
- The goals
- How did the goal(s) go
- What were the misses
- What were the wins
One and Done Daily Goals
- This is something that you can complete in a single day (Quick / Easy wins go here)
[Where we successful? Did we fail? What pivots did we have to make to ensure success? Do we need to reschedule this goal to another day?]
(Day 2+) Next Day's Goals
- After the first day of goal setting we need a space to set more S.M.A.R.T. goals for tomorrow (more on this below).
Affirmation
- An "I am" statement that sets the focus for the day. Did we embody this focus or do we need to keep working on it?
Optional
- A note about something that needs to be done 'soon' but is not yet something you are ready to make a task or goal. This can be just a quick reminder like "meal prep Sunday" or "Remember to check the salt levels for the water treatment system".
What Makes a Good Goal?
Talking about setting goals is all fine and dandy. If you are like me, no one ever taught you how to make goals until you entered the workforce. It is likely that those were handed to you by management. So, as for me and my house, we have chosen to follow the S.M.A.R.T goal methodology. This is where we write the goals using the following formula:
S - Specific - Is this goal clearly telling you exactly what needs to be done? Or is the language vague? Clean my room (vague) vs. Put away all my laundry, organize my bookshelves, make my bed, wash my window, dust/clean the flat surfaces, remove all trash, and make sure all objects are in their own home (specific).
M - Measurable - This tells us how we will know that the goal is completed. Measurable can be based on quantity or it can be based on end result. If the goal is to clean my room, I can measure my success by checking off the items on the list I was specific about. If I get all of those actions done - then the goal was a success.
A - Attainable - Are you capable of completing the task on that day or in general? If you know that you will be out all day tomorrow running errands, are you going to have the time or the energy to clean your room? If not then that goal is setting you up to fail tomorrow and should be pushed back to another day.
R - Relevant - Does this task actually exist in my life - or is it so far out of left field I question how I came up with it? If you don't have a room - how can you clean it? More seriously - if you put "organize my bookshelves" in the specific section and you don't have any bookshelves - then you have already set yourself up to fail.
T - Time-bound - This is where you narrow in on the when. We know we want to clean our room tomorrow - but that is 24 solid hours where it could get done at any time. Look at your schedule and determine when during those 24 hours you will clean your room. Such as between 10 am and 12 pm.
Putting it all together we could have:
Between 10 am and 12 pm tomorrow, I will put away all my clean laundry, organize my bookshelves, make my bed, wash my window, dust/clean the flat surfaces, remove all trash, and make sure all objects are in their own home.
How Does the Conversation Go?
It is good to have an accountability partner for this next part if possible. If not, you can do this with yourself as well. When sitting down to discuss how the days goal(s) went you want to go over it in detail.
"I was successful at cleaning my room today because I accomplished all the items on my list. The issue I had was that I slept in past my alarms today and did not start cleaning my room until 1 pm and it took 3 hours instead of 2. Next time I will [insert solution(s) here]"
Solutions can look like:
Keep my curtains open so the sunlight will help me wake with my alarm
Set the time frame to clean my room to be later in the day
Give myself 3 hours to complete those tasks
Ask for help to reduce how long it takes me to complete my cleaning tasks
The point is not to beat ourselves up. The point is to identify patterns and areas of ourselves that need a little extra training, care, and attention so we can accommodate for that. The focus is never on how we failed, but on how we plan to be successful next time.
Then, once we address the current day - we start looking forward to the next day and what we want to get done. Recognizing that if you have plans you can bake those into your goals and use that information to support you in your success journey. Always look to set yourself up for success - if you have to people all day and you know that when you get home you will be exhausted - then set a self-care goal instead of a growth goal.
Types of Goals
Now that we discussed how to set a S.M.A.R.T. goal we can focus on the different types of goals. There is nothing wrong with easy wins, but if that is all you are setting then you are not encouraging yourself to grow and are staying in your comfort zone. There is a time and place for easy wins, and a time and place for growth goals. Learning how to challenge yourself in a healthy way is, well, a challenge.
Growth is uncomfortable and can stir up some unpleasant sensations and feelings. I have noticed a cycle in my family that the first 2 days of this process is enthusiasm and eagerness; day 3 meets the meltdown. The processing of emotions that have gone un-addressed and un-regulated come up and resistance enters the stage. Shame resiliency goes out the window and avoidance behavior peaks. This is why an accountability partner who is able and willing to sit at the table with you for however long it takes is important. My household had an hour and a half shut down because the person heard ' you're a failure' instead of "Let's clearly define what success and failure looks like for this goal".
Then, because the accountability partners did not disappear, go away, yell, scream, or otherwise derail the conversation - we got over it and moved on. Accountability partners stated in no uncertain terms " I am showing up for you, now all you have to do is show up for yourself. We will sit here until midnight if we have to - but we are going to complete this process today". I may or may not have had spirit tell me something similar when I was fighting much needed growth.
So when you set a growth goal for the day, buffer it with some gentler goals that will help boost your confidence as easy wins. Packing a whole day with nothing but growth goals can be exhausting. If you know that you need to exercise - but you do not want to - that is a growth goal. If you LOVE gardening, then that may be an easy goal (or reward) you can use to buffer the need to do your Yoga for the day. Be gentle with yourself while you push yourself towards your favorite version of yourself.
Recommendations
Learn from our pain. Here are some tips that may help you on this path:
Set a specific time every day to have the goal conversation. We sit down at 4 pm as that allows us to have the talk and then wrap up any "pending" goals before bed time.
The meeting should be 15-30 minutes. This should be enough time to review current day and plan out the next day.
Be willing to sit at the table all night if that is what it takes to accomplish the purpose of the meeting.
Lean into the uncomfortable emotions. This is imperative to the long term process of holding yourself accountable and feeling GOOD about being vulnerable and honest.
If it is not written down, it does not exist. How can you hold yourself or others accountable to something that was only said verbally? Eyewitness testimony is problematic for a reason. Write it down, make it real, and remove nuance.
Keep your notes in a single notebook. This way you have a record of how you did. Keep a DIFFERENT journal about how different activities affect your energy level.
Determine what your time tolerance is for tasks. If you love to draw but notice that more than an hour of drawing starts to drain your emotional battery - then set a boundary for yourself that you will stop drawing after an hour. Even if it is only to take a break and get a snack.
Brainstorm goals ahead of time. Grab a pad of sticky notes and a sharpie and in three minutes write down as many ideas as you can about good goals. ONE THOUGHT PER STICKY NOTE! This will allow you to stack similar ideas together. Bonus points if you invite your loved ones to ALSO help brainstorm ideas with you. This will give you a list to refer to when you just can't summon the energy to find a new idea.
"I don't know" does not exist. It has been replaced with " I need to find out" or " I will find out".
Goal setting is a good way to connect to yourself and how your brain patterns work. Having a history of what you can do successfully, and how much energy that task took, will help you plan better in the future. You may learn quantitatively what you've only known anecdotally about yourself - or find that the opposite of what you thought about yourself is true.
I have found through this process that my thoughts of "I cannot do anything consistently" is a lie. I struggle with consistency - but I am able to find a rhythm that allows a task like dishes to get done on a daily basis. Sometimes it is doing a full load of dishes, and sometimes I can only manage to put three clean dishes away. Regardless, something to do with the dishes get's done and that is my measurement for success.
Final Thoughts
I know my brain well enough to know that I have to set goals on a spectrum. If I want to get 7 tasks done in my room to consider it "clean" I will put the goal more like this:
Between 10 am and 12 pm tomorrow I will accomplish no fewer than 4 of the following tasks:
Put away all my clean laundry
Organize my bookshelves
Make my bed
Wash my window
Dust/clean the flat surfaces
Remove all trash
Make sure all objects are in their own home
This allows me the grace I need in case I wake up without a lot of energy to get through my day. This also allows for pivots in case other issues or situations pop-up that I have no control over or completely forgot were happening. I can consider doing only 4 tasks as a win, and anything between 5 and 7 as either a stretch goal (above and beyond) or as something to be rescheduled to the next day.
Learning how to set mundane goals has helped me to set my magical intentions in a way that is clear, concise, and lacks nuance. This means my spells are more targeted and the results align better with what I hope to accomplish. I am able to practice the skill of magical intention via mundane means. Thus allowing my everyday life to support my spirituality and vice versa.
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