024 Are You Corrupting Your Intentions?
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This is Dr. Tori. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show where we make every day better and we influence for good.
Are you corrupting your intentions? Now, oftentimes we think of intentions as being something that occurs before an action, before we say something, before we do something. And while for the most part that's true, butI want to change the way you look at intentions because this will vastly improve your relationships and your influence because it will shape your character.
So let me explain. If you're about to, if you have like a goal that you've set or something that you want to strive for, sometimes. you set an intention much earlier. You say, you know what, I'm going to study this profession. And so I'm going to do what it takes to get into that school. I'm going to do what it takes to get through it and do it well.
And to pass the exams that are related to it, to get the licenses and the credentials and all that stuff so that I can do this thing. And so you set that intention way early, right? Now, Other times, you may have something where you set an intention, and it's just before the event occurs. It might be before you call somebody.
You'd be like, you know what, I want to call, and I'm going to make up for what just occurred, or or the words we exchanged, or the argument we had, or something I may have done or not done, right? And so you set that right before you make the call. You say, you know what, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to, I'm going to make this right. And you set that intention and sometimes we're, we're kind of winging it, like we have an intention, but we're not actually conscious of our intentions. And so what I'm asking you to do first is to pre event pre goal is to take a good, hard look at your intentions and ask yourself, is, are my intentions optimized?
Are they purified? Are they the best intentions they could be? In other words, what's your why? Why are you doing the thing? Why are you about to say the thing? Why are you about to pursue this goal? Ask yourself, what's the why? And is the why noble? Is it honorable? Is it something worth striving for? Now you might say, wait a minute, why does it matter?
This is a personal thing. How does it shape your influence later? If you pursue things nobly, you will be noble. It will be part of your character. It'll be part of your fiber. And this starts way before the actions start. This is something where if you intend to do good, then you set that intention early.
Now here's the thing about intentions, though, that a lot of people miss. Is that intentions are still there after the event occurs. After the goal is reached. You know why? Because you might corrupt them. The most common way to corrupt intentions is to brag, to show off, to say, look at what I've accomplished.
Now, I don't mean that it's okay to feel good about those things. It's okay to feel shine, but shine is very different than pride. Pride starts to be blameworthy. It start, you start to enter into a space of blameworthiness. What I'm warning you against here is that after the fact. You've accomplished this thing, and that's wonderful, but what were your intentions to begin with?
Were your intentions to pursue that profession because you wanted to serve? Were your intentions to pursue that profession because you wanted to provide for your family? Were your intentions to to serve a greater cause? If so, those are purer intentions than, say, earning as much as you can, or unless even earning as much as you can could be noble if it's so that you can serve with that money, right?
So all I'm saying is, check yourself before you get going. And along the way, after the fact, are you bragging about it? Are you talking about it? You can corrupt your intentions. Initially, your intentions may have been great, You may have performed well, you may have rocked it, you may be the best at your profession or the skill that you set out to develop, you may have really impacted a lot of lives.
But if you're then talking about it, bragging about it, showing off about it, you're corrupting the original intentions. And that really matters when it comes to your influence. It really matters when it comes to your relationships. It really matters when it comes to your habits and when it comes to your character.
Goes for how you speak of things to if something befalls you, that, is you have a breakup or a loss and you start to speak ill of that relationship. I mean, does that take away from how you felt when you were writing that anniversary card before or having that celebration or taking that person out to dinner?
Did that did all that stuff go away? Was all that stuff not real? Yeah, it was real. But now after the fact, if you speak ill of it, if you have ill feelings, if you have, if you look back at it, like how poisonous or toxic it was, like you're actually corrupting the intentions you had when you were writing that anniversary card or when you took them out to dinner or when you looked each other in the eyes and said, I do.
If after the fact you're looking back and speaking ill of it, the same thing goes, maybe you lost a job. How, and you believed in the work, you love the people you work with, and now that job is no more, okay? Maybe it didn't end the way you wanted it to, but does that mean you look back and say, you know what?
That place, this person, that thing? No. See, we need to be deliberate about our intentions. We need to be deliberate about how we manage our intentions through time and how we manage our intentions through contexts. Different contexts. be deliberate about your intentions and be consistent in how we manage that intention over time and be congruent in how we manage that intention through different contexts.
if you did some sort of work, some sort of profession that was noble and then became jaded, All right. In that case, what happens is you're doing this noble pursuit with noble intentions and doing noble work and having immense impact on people. But then over time, as you get jaded, you look back on that and say, what a waste of time, this and that, and you get jaded and that negativity, right?
What that is that's not being consistent across time. Have your intentions so that they are consistent across time. You have to keep working on your intentions, especially when something you perceive to be bad happens. A breakup, a loss of a job, an illness, some sort of, something that feels as if it's a, if it's a bad thing.
But how often have you looked back and said, wow, that thing was really good for me? That happens, right?
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The point here is be consistent across time, be congruent across contexts. Let me give an example of context.
If you start off your career and you're bright eyed and bushy tailed, and you really appreciate the people you work with and all that stuff and it's going great.
And then, maybe something changes. I don't know, maybe there's a leadership change, or maybe your shift departments, or you do something, and it's not what it was. Okay? It's a different context. Are your intentions still where they were? If not, manage them, get them back to that pure, optimized intention for that work.
And I'm telling you, you'll show up differently. You will show up differently. So manage your intentions across those contexts. If the stuff at work changes, fine, but manage your intention for the change. Manage your intention across time. So this is the way, and now why, what in the world does this have to do with influence?
When you are deliberate, when you are consistent, and when you are congruent about your intentions, and they are good intentions, it is palpable. People don't understand why, but you are magnetic. You are magnetic. That, when you have good intentions, and you're consistent with them, and you're congruent, they shape who you become.
And that's not some influence tactic or hack. This is something where you are shaped by your intentions and how they move through time. So be deliberate. When people see it they'll see it, they'll know it, they'll feel it, and they'll grasp it. They'll experience it without you ever uttering a word.
So are you corrupting your intentions? It's time to be deliberate. Manage them. I'll see you in the next episode.
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