The Difference Between Goals And Intentions

Ambitious high-performers like you and me tend to be really goal-oriented. We know how important it is to have a clearly defined target to aim at so that your action can follow suit. But some things that we want in life are much more difficult to quantify, and that doesn’t make them any less important. 

That’s why I want to share what I’ve found to be the difference between goals and intentions, when to use which, and how to maximize both.

First, a good goal is meant to be as objective and measurable as possible. It’s meant to be quantifiable in that you know for certain where you’re at relative to it. We can interpret progress based on what we’re seeing, but that can be subjective. A goal gives you a specific metric to optimize against. For example a goal would be to “double revenue” or “lose 15 pounds”.

An intention, however, is less defined. It’s an understanding of the broad, general direction of change we want to see. An intention is actually what comes before a goal because it’s a more honest reflection on what we want to see happen. This naturally leads to it being a more intuitive process because it requires more self-awareness, introspection, and alignment. 

Intentions are often phrased with more directional or orientation-based language - things like ‘more’, ‘less’, or ‘better’. Examples of intentions would be “increasing revenue” or “decreasing weight”.

Even though there are clear differences between a goal and an intention, they’re meant to work together:

First, a goal is only relevant when it’s aligned with an intention. Achieving a certain result for the sake of getting the result is valueless if it’s not connected to what you want. So in that way an intention is the lens through which we arrive at our goals.

Second, it’s likely that we want many different things. But our ability to make progress on anything is limited by how much we’re focused on it. In other words, if we try to improve too much at the same time, we won’t make much progress on any of it. 

We have many desires. Some of those desires get organized into directional intentions, which reminds us of what we value. But even from there we need to be more discerning, and only a small subset of those intentions get formulated into committed goals. This means that the things that you’ve set goals for stand out above the rest as the changes you’re most urgently trying to introduce into your life.

As someone who tries to live as intentionally as possible, I am really thoughtful about what I want, who I want to be, how I want to show up, and the choices I make. This informs the goals I set for myself and how I organize my time. 

Converting intentions into measurable goals doesn’t come naturally to everyone. But one of the first steps to make it easier is understanding the fundamental differences between intentions and goals, and designing them with that in mind.

‍