Living and Working with Intention: Part 2

Welcome back! Have you spent the last month and a half contemplating the questions we left you with? If you’re new to this two-part series on Living and Working With Intention, how about you come over to Part 1 and get up to speed on the discussion.

If you’ve been with us from the beginning, Amanda Fagan, one of our 2018 Faces of Sola, shared some tips and practices to help you live and work intentionally.

Contemplative Practice

“Contemplative practice is a way we position ourselves in order to spend time practicing mindfulness and refocus our attention,” she shares.

“From here, we create awareness and gain the gift of wisdom out of reflecting on the lessons of past decisions. We can ask ourselves the hard questions and move towards a healthy mindset to be able to calculate the correct actions to reach our goals. It also helps cultivate enough self-awareness to become conscious to our motives and measure our stress, which is necessary to determine our limits. This helps reconnect our minds, emotions and body.”

Some of Amanda’s favorite examples of contemplative practice include:

• Meditation
• Prayer
• Practicing yoga
• Listening to music
• Writing in a journal
• Sharing dreams and ideas with a friend
• Dancing
• Going on a walk

Personality Assessment & Analysis

“Another helpful tool is taking a Myers-Briggs Personality or an Enneagram test to learn more about how you relate to the world through your behaviors, personality, motives, and overall, what makes you tick,” she adds. “Increasing this knowledge about yourself helps you get in touch with your beautiful, unique self and gain a deeper understanding of the ‘why’ behind your thoughts and decisions. This intentionally grows your self-love which creates the perfect landscape for growth and increased joy.”

Establish A Routine

“By definition, a routine is when we organize a sequence of actions that are regularly followed. This is the act of choosing to place yourself in the driver’s seat of your life and remain in control and accountable for your actions,” she says.

A few things Amanda recommends keeping in mind when establishing a routine:

• A routine that follows intention requires commitment and self-control.
• Carve out and set time for priorities so you can truly honor what is important and the goals you wish to achieve. 
• Make changes rather than excuses.
• Set an alarm to get up on time to do contemplative practice or eat a good breakfast in the morning.
• You may want to do housework or spend time with loved ones before or after work. An important part of my routine is making my bed every morning before I get started on tasks. For me, this physical act helps begin my day feeling more balanced and organized.
• I also balance motherhood and carpool and my routine involves making school lunches and dropping my daughters off. I have fixed my schedule so there is time to get ready and pack my own lunch before leaving for work myself.
• Utilize a calendar to mark important tasks and events so you work your routine around what is important. This also ensures you will be on time and respectful of other people’s time as well.

Work Routines

• At work, a good routine ensures that you are taking responsibility for everything that owning a business requires and building consistent actions that move you towards more growth and prosperity.
• Routines at work also establish boundaries so you can differentiate time that needs to be spent at home from time at work. Commit to that schedule. Clock out when it is time to leave and show up when you need to be there. It has been helpful for me to loosely schedule the days and times that I need to complete a task, such as placing my orders on Mondays, doing laundry on Thursdays, washing color bowls between clients and eating when my clients process.
• Establish a good routine during your services to establish a consistently good experience that your clients will be able to rely on and look forward to.

“Be intentional about how to start, approach and finish your service. Greet them with a warm smile, offer them a beverage, take care during points of the service like shampooing that are easy areas to go above and beyond in ways - like doing a scalp massage. At the end of the service, complete your routine with good habits and intentions such as pre-booking their next appointment and offering products to maintain their look,” she adds.

Self-Care

“Self-care allows you to take time for yourself, not out of selfishness, but rather as an act of self-love. It is the metaphorical act of putting on your oxygen tank so that you can better take care of others. Self-care can be as free or as luxurious as you want.”

Amanda’s Personal Self-Care Examples:

• Reading a book while enjoying a cup of tea on a cozy chair
• Sharing my thoughts with my husband or friends
• Playing with my daughters
• Taking 2-3 deep breaths
• Spending time in nature
• Thinking of something positive about yourself
• Writing down a list of three things to be grateful for
• Laughing
• Going out for lunch date by yourself or with a friend
• Taking a vacation to explore somewhere new and relax

“It is also good for the mind to regularly unplug from technology and social media. It can be anywhere from 24 hours to a week or even for a few months to fully detox.”

Examples of Physical Self-Care:

• Getting a check-up
• Going to the dentist
• Taking vitamins and medicine that your body needs
• Relaxing in an Epsom salt bath
• Talking with a life coach or counselor
• Getting a massage
• Scheduling a hair or nail appointment
• Diffusing essential oils
• Going to the gym or a yoga class

Self-Care at Work

It is also important to be intentional about practicing self-care at work. Simple ways to be intentional about self-care when working are:

• Blocking time between clients to eat a full meal
• Taking time to sit outside in the sun
• Making yourself a cup of coffee when you serve one to your client
• Arriving a half hour before your first client to get ahead on setting up for your day
• Take a few breaths before the fun begins

“I am someone who has struggled deeply in the hole of overwhelm and fear, who has gone through seasons of unplanned tragedies and the hardship of circumstances that were outside of my control. What I have learned is that life is an ongoing process of highs and lows, filled with setbacks and growth. There are times where goals need to be put on hold, replaced with rest and met with compassion.

I’ve found that being intentional is about changing perspective, actions and behaviors in a positive way and this thought process acts as an antidote to stress. While I don’t hold the key to all the answers, I have moved from a stress and anxiety led life to one where I remain intentional in my process to continue to grow and recover. I am deeply grateful for the blessings that this perspective has resulted in.

We are only human and even though we have incredible strength and the potential to push through setbacks and fear, we owe ourselves the greatest gift of grace when we don’t get it right and we make mistakes. And we also owe it to ourselves to never give up, to keep fighting when it’s hard, to reach for support when we need it, to cheer each other on, and in the words of one wise fish, to just keep swimming.”

Read more from Amanda: 

Living and Working With Intention: Part 1

Life Advice To Overcome Any Challenge

The Art of Salon Ownership and Motherhood