I am curious about the gaps between our intentions and our actions that are present at times in our lives. It is as if we are trying to wear high heels to cross the Alps. I recall a saying from Don Americo Yabar, a shamanic teacher with whom I studied in Peru in 2004, “Intent is. Intention tries. Intent is a pure, light energy having a distilled, laser-like quality.” I was also reminded of blogger Steve Pavlina’s distinction between “being” and “doing”. He wrote, “When your identity is out of sync with your goal, action is very difficult — it is doing. When your identify comes into sync with your goal, action is inspired and effortless — it is being.”

If we want people to adopt new behaviors and attain new results through coaching, we must help them build an identity from which to do so. It is about helping them to align the stories they tell about themselves (intent) with the stories they live with their lives (intention). When there is alignment, clients are more powerful and more successful. When there is alignment, goals are more likely to be fulfilled because the results are a natural byproduct of a new way of being rather than remaining dependent on continuous efforts at doing.

For example, a client who ran a large intergovernmental project was frustrated in her inability to move her leadership team in some new directions. Through our work, she uncovered both autobiographical stories and cognitive narrative patterns that reinforced a sense of herself as one who was destined to battle difficult odds to make things happen. It would be slow going if we were to attempt to make changes in her leadership approach from this starting point. Instead, our work revolved around helping her to imagine herself as one who could be at the center as opposed to the margins and as one who was worthy of ease and grace. Once she was made this shift, she moved rather quickly to change the structure of her leadership team and the project in order to optimize her leadership preferences and achieve better results.

Clients find greater power when they come from a place of grounded and authentic intent rather than crafting intentions in their mind about how things should or could be. So, if you are feeling stuck in some aspect of your work or life, look for the places where this a disconnect, a lack of alignment, between the stories you tell yourself and the results you want. It is in this fertile ground that the seeds of one’s true intent are born.