Back to school! Time to get intentional: How to set intentions for September

The beginning of any new month brings with it space for a fresh start. A clean slate to pause and reflect, and take control of our time. 

But September is a special time of year. The kids go back to school, the academic world starts a new cycle, and we often find ourselves reflecting and resetting for the last few months of the year. 

If you’re feeling the ‘new school year, new me!’ vibes, we hear you! This is a brilliant opportunity to get intentional with your time and set yourself up to finish the year feeling more aligned and mindful with yourself. And a great way to do that, is to create a practice of setting monthly and daily intentions. 

So what are intentions, and why are they beneficial?

Intentions are actions with purpose. They’re commitments to yourself that bring positive energy to your life through thoughts, mantras or small goals that reflect your true desires. 

If this sounds a little woo woo, hear us out! Intention setting is about deciding how you want to feel, or what you want to take action on in the coming days or weeks, to align with your core values.

As Total Meditation author Deepak Chopra puts it: “Every intention is a trigger for transformation.”.

When life gets busy, our intentionality can often slide, and we find ourselves coasting along without real direction. The art of intention setting is about making space for yourself to be more mindful each day, especially during times when you’re feeling unbalanced or unfocused. 

The best thing about intentions is that they are completely personal to you, and can be realigned and redirected as your needs throughout the month change. 

Ready to get started? 

How to set intentions for September

Step one: Reflect on what’s important to you and what you need right now

When you start setting intentions, it’s easy to throw a few things on a to-do list and call it a day. But we encourage you to dig a little deeper, and work out what it is that you need in order to feel supported, accomplished and fulfilled this month. 

Start with a reflection practice by taking a notebook and pen, and lighting our Signature Prayer Candle. The scent combination (and this month’s Halcyon Naturals Subscription Box star!) is blended with cedarwood to relax your body, clary sage to relieve feelings of anxiety, frankincense to help you concentrate and rosemary to help banish any nervous tension. 

These powerful essential oils create space to find calm while you look back over August and ask yourself the following questions: 

• What felt good for me throughout the month?
• How can I make space for more of that this month?
• What didn’t feel good for me?
• How can I reduce that feeling?

Really try to focus on what you need right now and use the above questions to guide you honestly and openly.

Step two: Create monthly intentions

Once you’ve done the inner groundwork, use the reflections that came up and create some monthly intentions. These don’t have to be huge goals, but more mindful habits that you want to include or achieve.

Your monthly intentions create the foundation for the month ahead. They could be things like “I intend on spending more quality time with my family this month” or “I intend to explore my creativity”.

If your schedule is jam-packed and you know that creates stress for you, an intention to carve out time for yourself through meditation, yoga or self-care will help you balance things out. If your month is looking quiet or lacking adventure, you may want to bring in some energising or action-based intentions like “to explore a new activity” or “to focus on social interaction by bringing friends together”.

Remember to be compassionate with yourself, and allow for flexibility when life gets in the way. 

Step three: Revisit each morning and write daily intentions

Writing your intentions down can help them feel more concrete and achievable, meaning you’re more likely to stick to them compared to keeping them in your head. 

Each morning, take a few minutes to reflect on the monthly intentions you’ve set for yourself, and respond with some simple, daily intentions you can do to move towards your goal.

If your monthly intention was to spend more time in nature, a positive daily intention could be to take a 15 minute walk in your local park. 

If your intention is to explore your creativity, a daily intention could be to spend 30 minutes painting, journalling or crafting with your children. If quality family time is your monthly intention, daily intentions that support this could be to phone a family member, make time to eat dinner together as a family, or (finally) pop over to see your aunt with that banana bread you’d promised. 

Step four: Release your intentions

Once your monthly and daily intentions are set and written down, gently remind yourself of them as you go about your day so that you can mindfully work towards achieving them.

But it’s important not to become obsessed with the outcome of your intention, and allow yourself to experience the journey. 

Releasing your intentions is a powerful manifestation technique, where you remove any fear of not achieving the intention. It’s about understanding that you can be happy and fulfilled whether you achieve the outcome or not, and trusting in the process to live more mindfully. 

A great way to do this is to…

Step five: Practice gratitude as you tick them off

Practicing gratitude in the simple, everyday things will help you to create a joyful life. 

Whether you’re ‘on track’ to achieving your monthly intention or not, you’ll be more present and feel fulfilled by appreciating the setbacks and achievements along the way.

Each time you complete your daily intention, tick it off on your list. After the month is up, you’ll be able to look back and see all of the small things that you achieved in order to live up to your monthly intention. 

And if there are days that you didn’t act on your daily intention, you’ll be able to reflect on why, and see that you’ve still made progress in the long run by being mindful and gently aware of how you feel each day. 

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Intention setting is a powerful practice to bring more alignment into your life. Will you embrace this idea? What intentions will you set for the month? Let us know by tagging us @HalcyonNaturalsUK! 

Remember, you can get our calming Prayer Candle and our Candle Care Kit in this month’s Halcyon Naturals Subscription box – use code 1STBOX for 10% of your first order!

Sources

The MindFool: How to Set Intentions for Successful Living?

Goodvibe Blog with Janette Maw: The Antidote to Attachment