For my final intent in the month of February I wanted to make sure to remember What Matters Most. This is something that I know I can lose sight of quickly. It’s easy to take things for granted. I don’t think of how lucky I am to be healthy until I feel sick. I don’t think about the wonderful house we live in or our car unless something breaks down. Sometimes I have to lose something to remember how important it is. And I don’t want that to be the case.

I want to always remember what matters most and be deliberate to make sure I listen to those that matter most over the other stuff that can get in the way. If I chose to work at home so I can be there for my kids but then I don’t listen to them when they need me cause I am in the middle of a work issue, am I remembering what I decided matters most? (Obviously there are exceptions but in general, if I made an active choice of family over career, it makes sense that when there’s a family issue, for the most part, it should get my attention first.)

So my intention this week is to be deliberate about what matters most. To pay attention to it. What does matter most? How much am I honoring it? How closely am I choosing to listen to what matters most?

The lettering I used is here and I decided to go with simple little hearts for my sketch this week.

Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

Continuing with the theme of Listening Deliberately, I thought a lot about what I would like to focus on this week. Slow down is what came up. Maybe I should have switched last week’s intent with this one since it feels like slowing down should come before making a choice does, but alas this is how it showed up and I’m sticking with it.

Maybe it’s the universe’s way of telling me that I will have to slow down this week if I want to be deliberate. I am not the kind of person who slows down very often. I don’t mean the lack-of-focus: I can sit still and read a book for four hours straight. But when I am doing a task, I tend to rush through it. I tend to want to “get it done.” It’s not even getting it over with as much as it is being able to check it off my list.

Considering the size of my list, if I want to check things off, I am not slowing down very often.

And yes, when you don’t slow down, you miss things. You miss important things. You are not being deliberate. You’re not even present, how could you be deliberate? So the intent for this week is to slow down. Way, way, way down.

Let’s see how I do.

This week’s lettering is here and I chose the meditating girl for my sketch because meditating is an excellent way to slow down.

Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.