Intentions and Actions

‘I really want to go to the gym today’…’I need to text this person to check up on them’…’I wish I could have visited this place’. All of these and more run through my head every now and again. These seem like little things but what I have grown to realise is that my inability to be successful at the small things in life means I will struggle to succeed with the ‘big’ things.  As a person who constantly seeks to improve and better my life choices, once I recognise a pattern in my life I am unhappy with, I begin to introspect to find out why I make those certain decisions. I then try to look for ways to make things better. This way of doing things is inspired by my belief that “The unexamined life is not worth living” as the great philosopher Socrates put it. As humans, we owe it to ourselves to reflect on the way we live our lives and seek to always be better than the people we were yesterday.

This being said, I realised that I tend to have great wish lists and plans which seldom end up being executed. Of what use is it if my actions don’t match my intentions? I can have a million and one aspirations but if I just leave them as they are and I don’t do anything to make them happen then there is no point in having them in the first place. They say “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”.

The root cause of most of this was the misconception that I don’t have enough time. For so long, I managed to deceive myself that I am too busy to do some of the things I really want to do. ‘I am too busy to go for this event’…’I have too much school work to do so I can’t spend as much time with God today’ and the list goes on and on. All these are nothing but excuses and the thing about excuses is that they are so simple to make and it is so easy to deceive yourself that they are justified. From introspecting, I have come to the realisation that at the end of the day, if I truly want to do something and I consider it to be important, I will make time for it no matter what. If this were not the case, how is it that I claim to be so busy with school work but can make time to check my social media accounts without fail basically every day?  If I can make time for social media someway, somehow then I can surely make time to have my devotion with God every morning or to do most of things I claim ‘I don’t have time to do’.

However, if I truly feel ‘too busy’, this has led me to come to the conclusion that I need to prioritise better- by cutting down the time I spend doing certain things and devoting that time to what is more important. To be successful at all the things I intend to do, I must be intentional about actually setting time aside to get them done. Success is never an accident- it requires discipline and consistent work.

Every step each day in the right direction will lead me to my goals. This shift in my mindset has made me realise that- There is always enough time. The question is whether or not I would make the most of it each day.

Psalm 90:12 – “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”.