Intent. Intention is all the rage. Set one and manifest. Affirmations. Visualizations. Clarity. Vision. The end in mind. All of these are tools of creation in life and business. I use them daily, in my own life and with clients.

But lately I’ve begun to wonder if sometimes we don’t shrug off responsibility for the impact of our words and actions with the defense, “I didn’t mean to.”

I get nervous goose bumps when the conversation circles only around intention and never impact. And I’m not talking about a legal conversation or a court of law. I’m talking about personal responsibility here.

So yesterday after taking a class on harassment; sexual harassment in general I made the statement on twitter that intent is no defense for impact. Meaning you can’t hide behind, “I didn’t mean to, if in fact you’re actions had a negative impact, outcome on another.” (BP comes to mind!)

The other part of my statement was, “Be mindful of your impact regardless of your intent.” Again implying, that in life personally responsibility demands we be stewards of not only our thoughts but our actions as well.

Funny, at the end of the night my tweet was referred to by divafish’s as her least favorite tweet of the day and @profhank asked if I was saying intent NEVER mattered. Clearly 140 characters was not adequate for my impact to be what I intended):

Intend. Visualize. Create. Manifest. Build. Partner. Innovate. Change. Transform.

Every day I hear about instances where no one intended to do another harm and yet great harm was done; harm to hearts, minds and souls, harm to dreams, possibility and futures.

So you can bet I will be an advocate for a more mindful, aware way of living and being.

So today my question is what is the impact of our intentions, our words and actions? How aware am I of my impact on others? On the environement? How responsible am I? Because ultimately I’m responsible for not only my thoughts and visions but for the reality I create moment by moment that impacts others.

Responsibility. It makes a life, our world better- at least that’s what I think- now it’s your turn! What do you think?

Now get unleashed and make a life- not merely a living!

Pam Hoelzle

425 218 5864

photocredit Uploaded on April 30, 2006
by Meta-morphosis