Summary: (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_225-150x150.jpg) Everyone knows that success in life is a function of your “intention.” Right? I just read an excellent blog post by Joe Vitale (http://blog.mrfire.com/why-i-gave-up-intentions (http://blog.mrfire.com/why-i-gave-up-intentions)) that challenges this point of view. Joe’s perspective makes a lot of sense to me and, because New Year’s Resolutions are usually all about our intentions, I thought I would use my first blog post of the new year to take a fresh look at this topic. Joe questions the value of intention (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-010310-blog-post-inspiration-253x300.jpg) Joe makes this point: “Today I realize that most intentions are limitations. Intentions come from your ego and can actually limit what is possible for you to receive.” He goes on to explain: STAGE ONE: In the first stage you are a victim. We’re all born into it and most of us stay there. With coaching or the right books or the right movies, you one day break free. STAGE TWO: In the next stage you realize you have more power than you ever thought before. In this stage intentions are fun and exciting and useful. You aim your life where you want it to go. It’s exhilarating to manifest things like new cars or a new house or anything else you can imagine. But there’s a stage after that. STAGE THREE: In the third stage you realize you have choice but you don’t have control. You realize you don’t have all power. This is where you surrender. This is where you can receive inspiration from something greater than your ego awareness. I was filmed for two more movies last week. One of them is all about letting go to inspiration. For me, I want inspiration. When it comes, that becomes my new intention. But the intention comes from inspiration, not from limitation. The intention comes from the Divine, not my pipsqueak ego. In short, when I receive an inspiration to do something, it becomes my intention. So I still believe in intentions, but not those of the ego, but those of the Divine. A distinction between intention and inspiration Joe made an important distinction between inspiration, which comes from who we really are (the “creator”) and intention, which comes from who we think we are (the ego, the “creation”). Because our creation is pretty much run by our already-existing beliefs and conditionings, our intentions are not really freely chosen. Our intentions are determined by our past, or, to be more precise, the meaning we gave past experiences. In other words, our intentions are limited by our beliefs. We can’t intend to achieve more than our beliefs will allow. Inspirations, on the other hand, are created out of nothing. Inspirations don’t depend on anything and they are not limited by our beliefs. If you were asked: What is the source of any goal you might have—and you explain why you have the goal, you probably have an intention that is a function of your beliefs. If your answer is, “just because” or “why not” or “just because I said so,” you probably have an inspiration that was created independent of your beliefs. As soon as I realized the power of The Lefkoe Method (TLM) about 25 years ago to make a profound difference in the world, I said to myself: I intend to spend the rest of my life using TLM to make a difference in as many lives as possible. A worthwhile intention, isn’t it? But when I first created this intention about 25 years ago it mattered to me. I used it to define who I was. It became my identity. I had to do it. It was a better way to spend my time than how most other people spent their time. The world needed what I had to offer. My intention became an inspiration And then about 10 years ago there was a shift from: I need to do it, to: I choose to do it. And I would be okay if I didn’t do it. The world didn’t need me; it would be okay without me.
