Intentional Living with Kathy & Michael

Welcome back!  Thanks for listening and engaging.  Your comments are welcome at [email protected].

In this episode, Kathy and Michael discuss specific tools and exercises to envision the intentional life you want.   Here are some key ideas and tools from the episode.

Airport Exercise:  Michael first learned about the Airport Exercise from a blog and podcast by Pat Flynn called Smart Passive Income.  Here’s how to do the Airport Exercise:  Imagine you are five years in the future and you run into a friend, a good friend, at the airport whom you haven’t seen in the past five years.  What will you say to bring your friend up to date about your life in a brief conversation – not too long because you both have planes to catch!

First step:  Take a piece of paper and draw lines to divide it in four quadrants.  Give a name to each quadrant that identifies an area of life that is important to you.  Examples:  Health, Creativity, Travel, Family, Adventure, Connections, Love, Relationships.  Don’t anguish over what you write; just put down what floats to the top of your mind.

Second step:  Under each category, list a few things, in the present tense, that characterize that part of your life that you will be excited to share with your friend at the airport.  Examples:  I published my book!  I’m married and have 2 kids!  I’m a yoga teacher at a wonderful studio I love!

What’s the point?  The Airport Exercise supports your vision of your desired future by getting you to speak, from a future vantage point, about the life you want to live.  Using the present tense empowers that vision so that you can feel what it is like to have that life.

Five Year Plan:  The Airport Exercise is an imagination exercise, and Five Year Plan is a planning and goal setting exercise.  

First step:  Write down where you want to be in five years.  Examples:  I am a successful yoga teacher.  I am free of credit card debt.  I have published my book.  

Second step:  Break down the five year goal into year by year goals to establish benchmarks.   Examples:  In year one, I will take the courses required to become certified by Yoga Alliance as a yoga teacher.  In year two, I will research the studios in my area and offer to do workshops or substitute teaching so that I can get a feel for the sudio.  In year three, I will fortify my reputation in the local yoga community by leading regional workshops.  You get the idea. Third step:  Keep going; break each year into