Bah, some mornings it’s much harder to get my head to switch to the “on” position. Even coffee isn’t working this morning. I’ve been working on my morning rituals and the headspace app is one thing that helps kick in the “ok, time to get going on the day!” feeling. Anyhoo, as I’m always working on my time management skills (or lack thereof) I tapped on the prioritization activity. And….

The word of the day is INTENTION

It totally smacked me upside the head with a big DOH! Why do I do the things I do, focus on what I focus on? The intention doesn’t have to be preparing for a marathon or anything, but it definitely shouldn’t be “because I always have”. Intention is a close cousin to motivation. If intention is “a determination to act in a certain way”, motivations is the “why” or “the reason(s) one has for acting for behaving in a particular way.

Every month or two I review my finances to see where my money goes – the AMC member movie card when I haven’t been to a movie in months, channel subscriptions that I don’t really watch, etc. Funny thing is, I haven’t done that so much with time. It gets filled up with stuff but for a long time I haven’t thought about the “why”. When I start unpacking the “whys”, it gets a bit bigger. I haven’t taught workshops in a while. Why do I want to teach? Why did I take a break? What was behind taking a break? Those are things I need to work through.

The other thought is – time is a lot like money. There’s only so much of it to spend. We’ve all heard that before I’m sure, but it doesn’t really hit us until we’re open and ready for it. I’ve been dipping my toes in the water of doing a “time checkup” and thinking about my motivation and intentions about things I do in both worlds.

But wait! There’s more! This can apply to creating a dance can’t it? What is my intention? What is my motivation? Without having an idea of the intention for my dance, it wanders all over the place. I work on it, drop it, completely change it. Struggle over it. I don’t need to have a firm vision for a dance, I like to leave some space for it to speak to me and evolve, but I need to have a motivation for creating it right? Something more than “I need to make it for <dance venue> to perform in two weeks.” If I tap into my motivation and create intention, then I can follow it with action.

So hmm…let’s think about this. I have a dance called Nocturnal Serenade that I’m reworking from a pit stage to a full sized stage. What is my motivation? What is it about this song that speaks to me. I feel a dark Victorian vibe, a bit vampiric. Innocence, beauty, black, red, fog that hides secrets, street lights shining over cobblestone. The song goes back and forth with longing and ferocity. In reworking this one for the full stage I have to change it. It was designed for a 360 view, not to face an audience. What is my motivation for the dance, and from that I can set my intention in what to do with it. By thinking through my intention, this overcomes the dominating mindset of “I have to finish this by x day”. Now I need to follow this with action, making it happen, which also follows setting my intentions for the day/week/month – don’t you think. Kind of deep thoughts there.

Hmm…also makes me think, what’s my motivation and intention for this blog. Is it still the same as when I created it? It definitely does need a facelift…

Happy dancing – and may you have good intentions (followed by great action)!
~ Eva