Intention is a powerful resource when we want to start, change, or consider our business and it is worth understanding how to use it to the best effect. How do we best clarify our heart’s desire so that it reaches those we need to help manifest it and hold us on our track to success?

The obvious starting point, and it would be foolish to disregard this, is to understand the physical objectives. A successful brand holds a palpable presence in space and time. The considerations of budgeting, investment money, logistics and financial projections, to mention a few, are imperative. As is researching the viability, quality, expression and desirability of the product or service, your brand offer, as well as your support team. This could be from your accountant through to those with specialist and required skills. This is good solid practical research which helps establish a solid foundation from where to build our intention. It signals to our brain that we are committed to seeing this through to success and from here we can really engage the full power of our intention.

There are different ways of doing this

Once you are clear on your logical objectives and the details of your vision, you can hold these in your mind and see yourself in your ultimate success, in the timeframe of your choice but in a future where you feel you have ‘made it’. Obviously, this should be a timeframe that you believe possible, even if challenging, or your mind will reject it.

When you are in this space, see it clearly, as brightly as possible and in sharp focus. See the achievement of all your initial objectives, the manifestation of your intentions, and describe them in your mind. This is a powerful space where we create an intimate connection between our formed longing and the as yet unformed future. It is your space to imagine your best success and you can embellish your original, practical objectives as you wish. Curiously, and this is a wonderful side effect of this process, new details can emerge from the initial foundation. You may see a wonderful celebration, innumerable bottles of excellent champagne and prestigious guests all enthralled with your brand. The relevant press may be there, positive emails flooding into your inbox and there could be palpable excitement at the prospect of your imminent new brand extension launch fully funded with the profits of your original brand. Imagine it as you would like to experience it.

When you have satisfied all your intentions, and can imagine its potential manifestation clearly, create a final list.  Keep honing it until you are satisfied. It can be an effective reminder to have for referral. I find, too, that seeing the list can take me back to that very positive visualisation and fire up my brain cells accordingly to keep me on track.

This has worked for many; it is a tried and tested method. Some people add pictures to create a vision board. As a logo designer, I find the elements within the logo are a much more focussed visual expression of an intended future than a collection of images, cut out of a magazine, that are someone else’s expression.

‘However you choose to express your intention verbally or visually’ then there are choices on how to proceed. We can pay attention to the list, in much the same way as a vision board creator would put the art on a wall to see every morning. We can carry the list, read it daily, perform some sort of ceremony or ritual around it, really anything that builds it in our mind. We know that which we pay attention to grows. However, there is an opposing school of thought that once the intention has been created and expressed, we simply forget it and trust. Revisiting it like a dog worrying a bone is seen by some to be counterproductive.

It is a personal choice and I prefer the following adaptation using the power of emotion that fertilises successful brands. This is the vital part of this process, and it starts from when we are in the visionary state, creating our intention in a future imagined experience. At the peak of this, when we are really ‘in’ it then we feel it, intensely, in every cell in our being so that we fully embody the emotion. Then describe the feeling, where it is – heart, skin, arms…, how it feels – soft, hard, warm… and so on. And then, just trust that intense feeling. There is no need to make a list, this route is more of a close collaboration between your vision and the future space that you have created for it to slip into. It feels, to me, more trusting and powerful. I love the example from one of my books, backing this, about two women manifesting the man of their dreams:

The first woman spent considerable time creating a clear and long list of her perfect man. The second simply imagined how she would feel when she met him.

Both worked successfully but the first woman forgot to add to the list that she needed to love him. She didn’t.

While, of course, it is important to have clarity in the first place, sometimes we just have to delegate the details. Who wants the stress of micromanaging? Coupled with the current uncertainty of our modern business world, we observe the increasing fluidity of the parameters of success.

By first being clear about our intention, including the peripheral necessities and ramifications, and then expressing it in a written list, as well as a visual representation, we have created a powerful signpost that encourages to the result we want.

And then, by really feeling into the final result, as if we have attained it, we can enter a sort of bliss as we send a message to every cell in our bodies that this is attainable, thus prompting and easing the way to success.

‘I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.’ – Joseph Campbell