Intent and impact are not the same thing
You are always having an impact
No matter how you show up, you have an impact.
When you don't join a meeting, your absence has an impact.
When you join a meeting, your presence has an impact.
When you stay silent, your silence has an impact.
When you speak up, your voice has an impact.
When you turn off your video for a moment on a call, you have an impact.
When you move forward or backward in your seat, you have an impact.
Everything you do or don't say — it all has an impact.
The power of intention
When you understand that you're always creating an impact, you can determine up front what that impact will be. This is setting an intention.
We create this in the Rebellious Leader with big picture questions:
What’s the impact I want to have on my world?
Who is the woman I want to be in the world?
You can also set an intention in a small way. Before any meeting or interaction, ask yourself:
What’s the impact I want to have on this meeting?
What’s the impact I want to have on the people in this conversation?
Setting your intention at a small scale allows you to pay attention to whether you create the impact you intended.
Remembering your intention
Once you set an intention, it becomes your responsibility to keep it top of mind. You can use a structure to remind you.
With this reminder, you're more likely to choose action (or inaction) that aligns with your intention. You set yourself up for creating the impact you want to create.
But your responsibility doesn’t stop with the action or inaction.
You have to stay present to sense whether you've created the impact you intended.
Developing your impact sense
Determining whether the impact you created aligns with your intention is an art, not a science.
One way of thinking about this is to describe the quality of the space after your contribution. Tune into your five senses and your intuition by asking “what’s here now?”
What happens to the volume?
Is there movement or stillness?
Do people come forward or retreat backward?
Do they tense or lighten?
Understanding your impact requires you dare to trust what you sense — and treat it as the truth. This is not about being right or wrong. It is about trusting yourself and removing your ambivalence, so you can respond to the impact you've created. Over and over again to keep orienting your action toward your intention.
Society conditions us to turn off this sensing. You own the dial to turn it back on.
Sensing is enough
There is always a temptation to want data and facts to help you determine whether you're on target with your intention. You might want to look to these places for information, but they’re faulty indicators of your impact:
Tuning into you: You can turn inward to how you're feeling. But this disrupts your ability to stay present to your impact. It is also not reliable. If whatever action you took required courage, the judgmental part of you will see it as a failure. The energy of questioning yourself will be present. And it’s not a good indicator of your impact.
Tuning into others: You can ask for feedback. You can gather others’ perspectives on the impact you created. You can even source ideas for which actions might better create the impact you're intending. But all of this is inconclusive. Biases are woven into these perspectives and into the fabric of the feedback you receive.
You can get input from others. The trick is not to hold it as more valuable than your own impact sense.
The benefit of sensing into the space is that it’s larger than any one person’s perspective. This is by design.
Call for reflection:
Where do you know you want to have an impact? Set an intention beforehand, and stay present to sense what emerges.
Shine On,
Alicia