This week I was asked to focus on Intent and Impact. For everything one does, there is intention behind why do it, what is the desired impact. Humans are geared to strive for impact; it is what measures our success, our purpose. If we don’t experience or witness impact, then we begin to struggle. Impact keeps us moving forward.

Our intention is the work towards impact and should be structured into stages. My intention in the morning is to start the day calm and organized. The impact will be I am more productive, less reactive. My intention for work is dictated by my task list. The impact is the productive feeling of checking off the boxes. My intention for evening is to relax, unwind. The impact is that I am more available through rest. It seems easy, when intent is clear and desired impact known, it is then that the path seems less chaotic.

Intent is about every aspect of one’s life. The intention to create a home that is supportive and nurturing with the desired impact that your family feels safe and loved. The intention to succeed at work with the expected impact of monetary and intellectual rewards. Intent becomes trickier when we are asked what is your intent for your personal grief.

In the grief community, there is a truth that when your world is blown up with big loss, everything you are, everything you do, comes into scrutiny as to whether you want to continue or change. Intent is shaken. Impact seems impossible.

Grief supports the necessity to take smaller steps. When we live with loss, the main intention is clear; how do we survive daily with such sadness. Our intention is to manage. Our impact is murky. Do we want our impact to be that we just endured the day? Or do we want our impact to be bigger? If we intend to create a life that makes our grief manageable, giving us the ability to feel joy and connection to those we love, the impact becomes clear. Our impact is a (new) life of purpose.

Truly, I believe the main factor in all this is energy. What amount of energy do I have to set intent and recognize impact. There is comfort in the agreement that baby steps are permissible. Encouraged. It can be achieved in the forming of behaviors. Choose one small thing today that could lead you to impact and do only that. Every day. Make it a routine such that it becomes easy. Then add another. And so on…

A word of caution I was also given about impact. Sometimes the best intentions fail. I share that, not to feel defeated to even try but rather to remind ourselves that the only control one has is in setting intention and working it. How impact turns out only the Universe knows. We must find peace in the pursuit.