“With Intention”

What does the phrase “with intention” mean in the realm of mental performance?

For human beings, it’s pretty easy to put on “cruise control” and go through the motions of our day and not even think about what we’re doing. I’m sure we have all had a day at school where you were checked out from the first class of the day to the last and can’t remember what you learned. Or consider the first day at a job and you didn’t know what your roles were and you weren’t working efficiently. Those days are days where we probably had a more passive, less engaged mindset. When we are training, it may be beneficial to be in a more proactive, highly engaged mindset.

One thing that helps get us into that type of mindset is setting intentions for our actions. An intention goes beyond just going to practice. Practicing with intention means understanding the purpose of the drills. What about a shooting drill should I be focusing on? Is it my release and arm angles, or is it my lower half and if i’m squared up to the basket? By asking questions you give yourself an intention when doing that activity. Every action we do should be derived from an intention to continue progressing towards our goal.

Intention goes hand and hand with goal setting as well (blog coming soon!). When you set your goals your intentions can be made to benefit your goals. If you have a goal to walk more, you now have the awareness to intentionally park further away when you go somewhere. You start to consciously do things to help you reach your goals. This theory can be applied to more than just getting better athletically. You can use it to help your growth in a career, academically, or in your personal life.

Comment below with a personal example of something that you either set an intention during or didn’t but thought of an intention you could have set!