It’s been a moment since we touched on the topic of how to live intentionally. Because of the recent relaunch of La.Rue, I thought it might be fun to revisit how one may begin their journey to an intentional life. Just like all lifestyles, the habit of living intentionally isn’t born overnight. It takes more than one strong day to establish intention in your routine. Because living intentionally isn’t like starting a challenge or implementing one single, new habit. When you decide to live with intention, you’re essentially changing the foundation of your life. This journey, like all, will not look the same for everyone. Everyone incorporates different elements of what feels intentional to fit this new lifestyle. But each journey is built on one foundational mission: to live a life with purpose and intent, leading to greater happiness and joy.

So where do you begin? For most people, choosing to live intentionally and drastically change their life will come from a place that desires a desperate change. I know that’s exactly where my journey began. I was existing in a moment in life where it felt like all I was doing was falling, and there was no way up. If you’re interested in learning more about my story, you can listen to the first episode of the Do the Damn Thing Podcast. In that episode, I talk about the moments that drastically changed my life, leading me to this shift. But today, and like all blogs, I want to talk about how you can shift your life to live intentionally.

How to Live Intentionally: Where the Journey Begins

Two things happen when we begin this journey. One: we reach a point where the lifestyle we’re currently living is no longer working for us. And two: Because that lifestyle is no longer working, we reach a point where we’re ready to make great changes. Intentionality is all about alignment. When we reach this point where we’re ready for change, it’s because things like our happiness, love, joy, and bliss are out of alignment. And feelings become out of alignment when our lifestyle no longer aligns with our values. Living intentionally means living by your own set of values. When it comes down to it, we all have values we’re not willing to compromise on. I’m not specifically talking about who you value, more like why.

We all value our family, our friends, children, significant others, our home, cars, safety, etc. Things and people that mean so much to us. But it’s why those things and people matter that create our values. We don’t value our home simply because it’s nice, but because it offers safety and comfort. We don’t value our parents just because they’re our parents; we value them because they teach us love, support, comfort, etc. It’s not the tangible people or things that create our values, but instead what they offer us.

Question where you’re out of alignment

When we first begin creating positive change, we start small. These small changes build momentum, and all of the sudden, our entire lives have changed. To begin creating this change, we have to first start by questioning everything in our lives that no longer feels aligned. Intentional living is about living in Universal alignment with your values. It’s not about what you think you should value, or what those around you say; it’s about what feels in alignment with you. Our values are naturally born from what we seek comfort and solace in. We’ve talked about values before at great length at La.Rue. Congruent to those conversations, it’s about allowing yourself to be honest about where you’re no longer aligning with those values.

In previous conversations, I’ve talked about the pillars of intentional living. And while those pillars still remain true, it’s worth noting that beyond those pillars, there are foundational values to living intentionally as well. It’s about becoming uncompromising in your beliefs. It’s also about building your relationship with self, facing deep shadow work, and putting yourself first. Living intentionally is about being selfish in the best way possible. Because when you’re selfish in an intentional way, you’re opening yourself up to bettering all the relationships in your life.

Slowly Falling into alignment

There are three steps we follow when beginning our intentional living journey. One: We first begin to change the reality of our physical world. Here, we’re implementing new habits and routines, adjusting our environment to reflect what feels aligned internally. This could mean severing relationships, moving, or perhaps completely changing your day-to-day to reflect what truly feels aligned. Two: We begin the conscious and subconscious work to address blocks we face that are keeping us from living an amazing life. These blocks could be around self-worth, financial worth, past trauma, grief, anger, fear, doubt–anything you can think of that is impeding progress in your life. We all have internal blockages that we simultaneously fear and allow to keep us safe. By addressing these blocks, we open ourselves up to greater opportunities while pushing ourselves beyond what feels comfortable.

And finally, three: By shifting both our internal and external environments and beliefs, we become uncompromising in the life we desire. As a platform that is built on the belief that women can have it all, I argue that “falling into alignment” is the first step we must take. Whether you dream of becoming an entrepreneur, running a company, being a stay-at-home mom, or climbing the corporate ladder, living intentionally matters. It’s here that we build fundamental beliefs that carry us through each step of our lives.