If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I talk about using intention as a way to direct our communication. Intention is how you want to affect the person or people you’re speaking to, what you want the outcome to be.
Intention is active; it is directed at the experience of others. The reason we focus on intention is that it draws us out of ourselves, it helps us stop thinking “I feel nervous” or “what if they don’t like me,” and puts our communicative energy where it needs to be—on the person we’re communicating with.
Another way to think about intention is aim. If you think about an athlete throwing a ball, their intention is always, 100% of the time, not about them. Can you imagine a pitcher winding up for a fastball and thinking, “what if they don’t like it?” The pitcher isn’t wondering what he looks like, or fretting about what to do with his hands. His aim is crystal clear.
Communication works the same way. Our words are the ball, our intention is the aim.
Read more about intentional communication here—
