Word of the Year: Intentional

2019 was neither the best nor a bad year for me. Technically, it was okay but I was just so surprised that it has ended so fast. Before I knew it, it was already the holidays and I realized I was not really able to accomplish something major for the entire year. I felt that I either slacked off or I had a lot of distractions.

Though I had no regrets about how the year went, I promised myself that I will try to achieve more of my goals this year. I promised that I'd be more INTENTIONAL this 2020. 

So, what do I mean by being intentional? 

According to liveandlovework.com, being intentional means you are purposeful in word and action. It means you make thoughtful choices in life. It also means that you live a life that is meaningful and fulfilling. 

In this sense, this is how I want to spend my year. I want to start making choices that are aligned with my goals and dreams. I want to make conscious decisions and here's how I plan to do it: 

1. Choose the projects to work on - As a freelancer, I am lucky to have the luxury to choose my projects and clients. This time, I want to do the tasks that I love and those that are aligned with my skills. If it would require some training, I want to make sure that it's one of the skills that I really want to learn and not spend time studying for the sake of the clients' needs. 

Just like what Leanne Jacobs of Beautiful Money said, “If an opportunity is not aligned with what matters most to you (your core values), let it pass. The opportunities that don't make your soul sing, or that you can't be excited about, just end up taking space where a better opportunity could be. Don't settle for something fine―wait for something great!”

2. Manage Smaller and Active Groups - Building and managing a community entails a lot of time and hard work. The bigger the group, the more effort you have to put in organizing events, addressing the needs of the members and keeping everyone engaged. If it's an online community, content moderation takes up a lot of time and effort to filter posts. 

Thus for this year, we, together with the other group admins, decided to clean up the groups that we manage. We started removing inactive members and will try to update certain group rules especially in online communities. We believe that it's better to have a small group with active and truly engaged members. In that way, we do not have to waste any effort on members who are no longer interested in the group's advocacy. 

3. Blogging - Though, I haven't really blog consistently for the past years. This 2020, I would love to write more posts. I am aiming to create at least 3-4 blog posts every week. I want to write my posts with my readers in mind, " How will this post benefit them?" 

This also means that we might be skipping some PR or sponsored posts that may not be aligned with our target audience. 

4. Minimize Shopping - Lastly, I want to try to lessen shopping. I usually go crazy whenever there's a sale or a huge discount is offered. Thus, I plan to minimize the things that I purchase. I have to make sure that it is something that we actually need. No more hoarding. (LOL!) 

Anyway, there are a lot more ways on how we can be more intentional which I plan to share on my future posts. However, let me end this post for now with my favorite quote from Richie Norton, “Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others' choices make us.”