Living with Intention – Rebuilding Life and Home

I choose Intention as my word of the year (blog link here) to focus on Living my Life with Intention.  One of the primary focuses in my Retirement Transition approach was to “create a life by design, not by default”. Living my Life with Intention right now means bringing that life design back into focus and making conscious choices on what I’m doing with each day. I relooked at my Retirement Lifestyle Vision statement and it still holds true for who I want to be and how I want to live:

Active Body, Connected Heart, Contemplative Mind, Creative Spirit

And so my seasonal (winter – Jan-Feb-Mar) plan went back to thinking along those lines. Not just to-do lists, but intentional living  I also created a 2026 Possibilities List to spark rebuilding my life to live (again) this vision.

I came back to Putting Positivity Psychology into Practice as well; I studied this area a number of years ago and crafted Pat’s Positivity Practices. (link here to one post about that). Many of these practices are part of my daily habits or are tools I use regularly since many of the practices fit into my Retirement Lifestyle Vision. But some need to be boosted back into shape post hurricane recovery.

• Savor the Little Things in Life – Invest in Experiences
• Morning Journal & Daily Gratitude
• Intentional Connections
• Connect to Nature
• Be Active – Daily Movement – Functional Fitness
• Embrace Self-Empowering Beliefs (release self-limiting ones) – Shift Negative Self-talk to Positive; Shift Compare & Despair to Observe & Admire; Understand your Triggers; Use your Glimmers
• Appreciate Time Abundance – Just Be
• Adequate Sleep & Manage Body Maintenance
• Encourage your Love of Learning
• Get Crafty; focus on Satisfaction of Engagement (versus need for mastery)

Exploring more about Living my Life with Intention led me to an interesting article about living an intentional life (see link here for article).  I found it interesting how the author talked about other aspects of intentional living:

• Becoming consciously aware of how you are reacting to situations around you (my triggers!). For me, this includes to stop hearing expectations or criticisms or rejections that are not there.
• Focusing on what is in your circle of control versus what is outside of it.  I cannot control most of the building recovery timeline and I need to accept that!
• Letting go of the shoulds and embracing the I want to, I choose to, and I will.  I know I want to have more fun, play more, laugh more. (blog link here), so that stimulated ideas on my 2026 Possibilities list.

Some other aspects of Live Life with Intention include:

• Being intentional with what and who I allow into my space.  A challenging one for me is to set these types of boundaries.
• Being intentional on my own personal growth – continuing to release my friendship fantasies and to become more aware of the inner voice that (still) expounds self-liming beliefs.  I had done significant growth on this area back when my WOTY was Release, but this past year’s trauma has shown me that more work is needed.

And so, I am crafting some plans, building in some daily affirmations, and yes, continuing some of my tracking lists to help with my WOTY. Maybe overkill for some, but I need to get back to fully living!

What does Live Life with Intention mean to you?

P.S. An update on the house rebuild (and yes, it is out of my control). We had a serious incident this past week which apparently was the result of low-quality cement block – multiple concrete columns blew out and collapsed. And so, another re-loop, another delay.  Silver lining was at least it was discovered early in the build and resolved, and no-one was seriously injured. Columns are rebuilt and first level walls are now done.

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