Direction, not intention, determines our destination

​Yesterday, I had a zoom meeting with my friends Celia and Meg who are attempting to run the length of the Appalachian Trail. They are doing it by running long weekend segments once every few weeks.

I'm going to give them a hand with their segment next weekend. So yesterday's meeting was to help me get a sense of where they will start and end and stop everywhere in between. And where I'll need to show up to best help them.

Yesterday, I got to be a live and enthusiastic part of the difference between "I intend to" and "get out of my way - nothing is going to stop me."

Intention is sitting around dreaming about a change in life. Direction is making the map and then being bold enough to follow it.

Intention is imagining a finish line. Direction is being bold enough to reach out to a friend and declaring, we will be here Saturday morning - we need you to be there too.

Following Meg and Celia's journey has been a huge influence on my lack of patience with intention. A lack of patience with my intentions AND with yours. They've helped me take notice of all the things in my life I've intended to do but never mapped out the journey to get there.

Because be sure, if you have an intention on your mind or in your heart, but you haven't mapped it out, you're not going there. If you're not bold enough to map out or say out loud the first step of that intention, you are surely not going to be bold enough to take that step.

There's something energizing about talking to two women who are approaching 700 miles into a journey that a very small population of women - especially women who are also working professionals and moms - will ever take. What largely separates them from others?

They are not big fans of intention.

Intention is a nice trigger. It's a nice prelude to imagination and wondering about possibility.

But in time, intention can become something that stands at the foot of the road and stares blankly down it.

Direction on the other hand - it starts walking.

Andy Stanley says, "Everybody ends up somewhere in life. The win is to end up somewhere on purpose."

There's not doubt Meg and Celia will end up at the end of the Appalachian Trail sometime next year. They will because they have no patience with intention.

Today would probably be a great day for me and for you to lose our patience with intention as well.