more hours, you’ll finally be able to appreciate the fruits of your labor. Why does this happen?
What is your true motivation for lifting that weight, being on that diet, working so late? Are you trying to lose ten pounds for health reasons, or are you in a toxic relationship that’s stripping you of your confidence? Maybe you don’t realize that you’re killing yourself at work just to put off having a hard conversation with your spouse. If that’s the case, no matter how much time you clock at the office, it won’t offer lasting relief, because you’re climbing the wrong mountain. We need to understand what’s actually driving our motivation before we ascend.
Our motivations are heavily informed by the media. Our social feeds are populated by endless images of wealth, travel, power, relaxation, beauty, pleasure, and Hollywood love. This virtual runoff perpetually seeps into our consciousness, polluting our sense of reality and self-worth every time we go online. We compare our lives to these largely artificial constructs and structure our plans accordingly, hoping to eventually afford a golden ticket to these misleading fantasies. Conveniently tucked out of sight are the months of planning, the “talent” lined up in audition studios toting their head shots, the production crews, the double-parked trucks filled with camera gear, the long spells of unemployment, the weeks of rain that stopped shooting, the food poisoning on location, the empty sets after they leave. Distracted by the never-ending stream of aspirational media, we forfeit our opportunity to define what is meaningful on our own terms.
Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse and author who spent several years working in palliative care with patients in the last weeks of their lives, recorded her patients’ top five regrets. The number one regret was that people wished they had stayed true to themselves.
When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.6
Choices come in all flavors: the good, the bad, the big, the small, the happy, and the hard choices to name but a few. We can make these choices carelessly, or we can make them with intention. But what does that mean? What does it mean to live an intentional life? The philosopher David Bentley Hart defines intentionality as “the fundamental power of the mind to direct itself toward something . . . a specific object, purpose, or end.”7 The term hails from medieval scholastic philosophy, so I’d like to adapt and update it a bit for our purposes: Intentionality is the power of the mind to direct itself toward that which it finds meaningful and take action toward that end.
If intentionality means acting according to your beliefs, then the opposite would be operating on autopilot. In other words, do you know why you’re doing what you’re doing?
We can’t be true to ourselves if we don’t know what we want, and more importantly why, so that’s where we must begin. It’s a process that requires the steady cultivation of our self-awareness. This may seem very woo-woo, but it can be as simple as paying attention to what resonates with us, what sparks our interest—and, just as importantly, what does not. As we begin to identify the things we’re drawn to, we can start properly defining our dreams, based on what we actually believe in.
When we believe in what we’re doing, we stop mindlessly clocking in. We become more innovative, creative, and present. We’re not only working harder, but smarter because both our hearts and minds are genuinely engaged by the endeavor.
Cultivating this self-awareness is a lifelong process, but it starts by simply checking in with yourself. That’s where the Bullet Journal method comes in. You can view your Bullet Journal as a living autobiography. It allows you to clearly see what the rush of life tends to obscure. You can track the decisions you’ve made, and the actions you’ve taken that led you to where you are. It encourages you to learn from your experiences. What worked, what did not, how did it make you feel, what’s the next move? Day by day, you’re deepening your self-awareness by becoming a steady witness to your story. With each page, you improve your ability to discern the meaningful from the meaningless. If you don’t like how life is unfolding, you’ll have developed the skill and determination required to change the narrative, as Rachael M. and her husband did:
I work full time as a graphic designer, run my own freelance business, and serve several days a week as a youth leader, all while helping my husband with his ministry. My husband and I met two years ago. We love being married, but almost from day one, there were so many needs and things to remember and events to schedule—we were both going crazy.
My husband and I were struggling to communicate and keep up-to-date with each other’s schedule. I went to work, bought groceries on the way home, made food, cleaned house, and tried to remember everything else I had to get done. By then it was time for bed, and the next day we started all over again. In addition to all this, we learned that I had a thyroid condition, as well as gluten and lactose sensitivities. Now food prep was even harder. I was completely overwhelmed.
We also struggled to spend quality time together. That’s obviously something that everyone knows is crucial to a happy, healthy marriage. However, since my husband is a pastor, a big part of his workweek happens on evenings and weekends and he takes time off during the typical workweek. I work a traditional nine-to-five Monday through Friday. It was extremely difficult to figure out how to carve out time together. I’m the extrovert of the relationship and I ended up feeling lonely a lot of the time because of how much his work needed him during my weekends.
We knew we had to do something, so we started scheduling everything in our Bullet Journals. We used the Weekly and Monthly Logs to get ahead of our schedule and figure out what was coming. This gave us a visual cue for how busy we were going to be and helped us know ahead of time when we probably needed to block off some time for just the two of us. It also helped me figure out that the key to feeling like I had enough time with him was having Saturdays together so we actually adjusted our schedules to ensure that both of us are protecting as many Saturdays as possible to spend time together.
Bullet Journaling helped us refocus on our personal goals as well. My husband and I were both single and established in careers we loved for some time before we got together. Both of us loving what we did meant we were used to giving our jobs a huge chunk of our attention, and that was important to us. We had to learn how to prioritize our marriage instead of just our work. We could have used digital calendars to sync up, but the discipline of analog and the experience of sitting down with our Bullet Journals to physically mark in events helped us have the conversations we needed to have and to look further ahead so we weren’t always blindsided by the next thing. It also helped us express concerns if we were starting to schedule too many things outside the home and made us feel like a unit, planning our life together, instead of trying to slam two busy calendars together. Now, we love our marriage and our jobs and want to help one another succeed professionally.
Now, almost eight months later, we are accomplishing more than ever in every area of our lives, all before 8:00 p.m. each night! Thanks to Bullet Journaling, I have a handle on my life. I know what’s coming. I have built in moments to reflect and make sure I’m actually focusing on the right things. And I have new confidence in my marriage and ministry because I know my husband and I are on the same page and are working toward defined goals that we share—we’ve written them right in the front of our journals.
—Rachael M.
This is what it means to live an intentional life. It’s not about living a perfect life, an easy life, or getting things right all the time. It’s not even about being happy, though joy often greets you along this path. Leading an intentional life is about keeping your actions aligned with your beliefs. It’s about penning a story that you believe in and that
