Make your brain work for you instead of against you
Research suggests intentional thinking activates the brain's goal-directed systems and makes consistent action easier.
I got this comment on my last post.
And this made me thinking, to write further on this. How often we are just reacting instead of choosing?
We react for a bad day at work, but never set an intention of what we truly wanted out of the day? We react for heavy traffic jam, and we never pause to think about how our journey should be.
We notice, only when something bad happens. And we react. Not before, not on threshold, AFTER something has happened.
Before I start my work day, I say something first.
Not out loud. Eyes closed for a 10 seconds, hands still on the keyboard. Something like: let there be ease, let me be guided and receive the guidance…the days when i have a difficult conversation, I focus on peace and calm, when I have to go on stage, I carry the excitement as an intention and so on..
I have done this for years and never really questioned it. It just felt like the thing before the thing.
Then someone asked me why.
Not in a doubting way. A real question. Does the blessing actually do anything, or is it just a nice sentence you tell yourself before you start typing.
I had a very energy centric answer. On how my energy shifts, how I know what I am carrying. But I was also curious to find the scientific, research backed answer to this. So I went looking at what the research actually says, not what I wanted it to say.
Here is the honest version.
The evidence does not say that blessing something, or setting an intention, changes what happens out in the world through some unexplained force. It does not prove that saying a thing quietly to yourself bends events in your favor.
What it does show is smaller than that. And somehow, more useful.
It changes what you notice, not what exists. Say the intention “today I will notice opportunities to help someone” and your brain gets better at spotting the moments that match it. Not because those moments were not there before. Because your attention was not tuned to them yet.
It is similar to you wanting to buy a red car and suddenly the road is full of red cars. They were always there. You just were not filtering for them.
Cognitive psychology calls this the salience network doing its job. I call it choosing what gets to matter before you even walk into the day.
It also saves you from deciding twice. When the intention is already set before the moment shows up, you are not negotiating with yourself in real time. Should I write today becomes I already decided this matters. That is not motivation. That is one less decision your brain has to process, and most of what people call discipline is really just that. Fewer negotiations.
Then there is the part of you doing the actual deciding. Planning, prioritizing, holding back the urge to scroll instead of start, that is the prefrontal cortex. Saying an intention, even just in your head, switches that part on before you need it. So you are not scrambling to find it mid task, you already have your hands on it.
The one that surprised me most was identity.
I want to write and I am someone who writes are not the same sentence, even though they describe the same person on the same morning.
People who anchor to the second one behave more consistently with it. Not because the identity was earned yet. Because they started acting like it was already true, and the acting became the earning.
Which is most of what a blessing actually is, once you strip the spiritual language off it. A small, repeated vote for who you already decided you are, cast before you have proof.
And under all of it, there is the body.
Ten seconds of pause before you begin is closer to mindfulness than to magic. It drops you out of the automatic reaction and into something closer to regulated. Nervous system settles a notch. Less flinch, more focus.
So no. The blessing is not rearranging the universe on your behalf.
It is rearranging you. What you notice. What you have already decided. Which part of your brain is driving. Who you believe you are before you have proven it. How regulated your body is the moment you begin.
📌 Before we keep moving, if this message supports you, pause and pass it forward. You never know who might breathe easier because you shared it
And since you are the one who has to act in the world afterward, that ends up mattering more than the version where the universe was supposed to do the work for you.
I built a stack of these a while back, because I wanted the pause ready before I needed it instead of improvised every time I sat down. The Blessings Swipe file Stack I was not being clever that day. I just needed the honest name for what it actually was.
The research will not tell you the blessing changes the outcome.
It just quietly agrees that it changes you first. And you were always the one doing the choosing anyway.
The Blessings Swipe Stack, give you the tools that bring the changes in you first, in your intention, your awareness and retraining your mind.
You reach for the words, and you keep creating.
What ordinary moment are you choosing to approach with a new intention today? Share in comments and we will set an intention for it :)
Everyone told you to be more intentional. Nobody gave you the words.
You know the moment calls for something. A breath, a word, an acknowledgment. But you open your mouth and nothing comes, or you are so caught on what is the right word for this… so you swallow the pill, board the flight, hit publish, and move on. The intention was there. The words weren’t.
After using this swipe file: The words are already written. You read one sentence. Your body recognises it as true. The moment lands differently, not because you added a ritual, but because you finally had something to say.
The pre launch price is $17 today. Give yourself a practice that helps you return to yourself again and again.
Here is what is actually inside The Blessings Stack.
Twenty nine ready to use blessings across medicine, journey, and posting. Written. Designed. Yours the moment you open it. Example.
Bonus one. The iPhone Blessing Automation Guide. Your phone shows you a blessing every time you open an app, so the practice happens whether you remember it or not. People pay someone just to set up their phone habits and automations for them.
Bonus two. The Post-it Note Practice System. An eight location physical ritual, the blessing lives on your walls until it lives in your body. This is what a habit installation session with a coach actually builds toward.
Bonus three. Moments You Are Missing. Fifteen threshold moments most people never think to bless. Before you board. Before you leave someone. Before a hard conversation. A curated mindfulness audit and blessing set for the moments that quietly shape a life.
Total value, $328. What you pay right now, in pre-launch, is $17.
I love this idea of setting an intention before getting started for the day. I am going to try it tomorrow, and see if it helps keep me focused and grounded.