How to set intentions (with examples that have a number)

"Set your intentions" is advice you hear at the start of yoga classes, Monday meetings, and new years, and almost nobody explains what it means beyond "think about what you want". Here is a working definition, a way to set intentions for the day, the week, and the year, and twenty examples that carry a number, because an intention you can check is the only kind that changes anything.

What is intention setting?

An intention is a decision about direction, made before the situation that will test it. A goal is the destination; an intention is how you plan to travel. "Lose ten pounds" is a goal. "I eat before I am hungry enough to make a bad decision" is an intention.

For money, the distinction matters more than anywhere else, because money decisions arrive constantly and small. The goal is $25,000 for the studio. The intention is what you do at 4pm on a Tuesday when a client asks for a discount.

What makes an intention hold is the same thing that makes a goal hold: it is specific enough to be recognised in the moment. "I am generous" dissolves on contact. "I wire $250 to future me before I open my inbox on Monday" is a sentence you will notice yourself keeping or breaking.

How to set intentions: the three-part sentence

Every intention below has the same shape.

1. A trigger. When. "On the 1st", "before a sales call", "when someone asks for a discount".
2. An action. What you do. Verb first.
3. A number. How much, how many, or by when.

Trigger plus action plus number. Leave out the number and you have a value. Leave out the trigger and you have a wish.

How to set intentions for the day

One intention, written before the first money decision of the day, which for most people is before 9am.

• "Before I open email, I post today's move for the Studio vision."
• "On the 10am call, I say the number, $5,000, and then stop talking."
• "At lunch I cancel the two subscriptions I wrote down last night: $31."
• "Today I spend nothing I would not say out loud to future me."

Write it at the top of the page. Cross it off or do not. Both are information.

How to set intentions for the week

Monday, three intentions, one of them recurring.

• "Every Monday, $250 wires to future me. This is set and I do not touch it."
• "This week I send the rate increase to the two smallest clients by Wednesday."
• "This week I post every real arrival next to the intention it belongs to."

The recurring one is the most important. A weekly intention that runs without you is the difference between a practice and a burst.

How to set intentions for the year

One per vision, with the annual number in it.

• "This year $13,000 goes into the emergency fund at $250 a week, and I do not renegotiate it with myself."
• "This year I pay myself $8,000 on the 1st of each month, before anything else."
• "This year the Studio vision receives 52 transfers, and I book the flight the week it clears."

An annual intention is a letter to your future self with a schedule attached. Post it where the number lives and it becomes a run-rate you can read every week.

Intention setting examples

Twenty, all with a trigger, an action, and a number.

Money

1. When a client asks for a discount, I repeat the number once and offer scope, not price.
2. On the 1st, I pay myself $8,000 before anything else leaves the business account.
3. Every Monday at 6am, $250 wires to future me.
4. Before I buy anything over $200, I write the memo line of the vision it delays.
5. When money arrives that I did not plan for, I post it to a vision the same day.
6. When the run-rate line says the number will not clear by the date, I raise the transfer that week.
7. When I feel the flinch at a price, I say the price anyway.
8. On the last day of the month, I read the statement and write one sentence.

Work

9. Before a sales call, I write the number I will say and the number I will accept.
10. When I finish work, I invoice it within 24 hours.
11. Every Friday, I follow up on the three oldest open conversations.
12. When someone offers me less than the number, I say no within the same message.

Life

13. On Sunday night, I write the week's three intentions and post Monday's transfer.
14. When I want to say "someday", I write the price instead.
15. Every quarter, I reread the letter to future me and check it against the balance.
16. When a vision clears, I post one last transfer with the memo "cleared" and start the next.

Self

17. When I catch myself calling a goal a feeling, I give it a figure.
18. When the practice feels pointless, I read the arrivals column before I decide anything.
19. When I skip a week, I do not skip the next one to make up for it; I just resume.
20. Every year on this date, I write the next number.

Where intentions live

The reason intentions fade is that they are set once and then carried in memory. Memory is not a good ledger. Manifesting Bank gives money intentions a permanent address: a vision is an account with a number, a transfer is an intention with a memo, and a standing order is the weekly intention that runs without you. Open an account, name the vision, and post the first one.

If your intentions keep collapsing into wishes, the fix is usually the number: how to manifest a specific amount of money. For the yearly version written as a letter, a letter to your future self about money.

Frequently asked questions

What does it mean to set an intention? To decide, in advance of a situation, what you will do in it. Trigger, action, number.

What is an example of setting an intention? "Every Monday at 6am, $250 wires to future me." It has a when, a what, and a how much.

How do you set intentions for the day? One sentence before your first decision of the day, with a trigger and a number. Cross it off at night.

What is the difference between a goal and an intention? A goal is the destination with a figure. An intention is how you behave on the way, also with a figure.

Is there an intention setting app? Journaling apps hold the sentence. Manifesting Bank holds the number and runs the recurring ones.