And that distinction can change the choices you make long before you reach the finish line.
BIGGER ISN’T ALWAYS BETTER.
Business culture gives us plenty of ways to measure growth.
More revenue. More clients. More followers. More subscribers. More offers. More visibility. More reach.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. Growth can create opportunity, stability, impact, and freedom.
But “more” is not a strategy.
If we aren’t careful, growth itself can become the goal. We start assuming next year should be bigger than this year simply because that’s what successful businesses are supposed to do.
More clients sounds good until you realize you don’t want a calendar filled with client calls.
A new offer sounds exciting until you recognize that maintaining it creates work you don’t particularly enjoy.
Greater visibility sounds wonderful until the way you’re pursuing it requires you to spend hours every week creating content you end up resenting.
None of those outcomes means the goal was wrong.
They mean the goal needed context.
INTENTIONS GIVE YOUR GOALS BOUNDARIES.
This is what setting intentions can do that setting a goal alone cannot. Imagine setting the same revenue goal, but pairing it with an intention:
I want to grow my revenue while protecting the flexibility I built this business around.
Now you have something much more useful.
That intention immediately helps you evaluate your options. Taking on twice as many clients may increase revenue, but it might violate the flexibility you’re trying to protect. Raising your rates, changing your offer structure, or creating a different revenue stream might move you toward both.
The goal gives you something to work toward.
The intention gives you a way to make decisions along the way.
This works far beyond revenue.
You might want to grow your visibility without becoming dependent on social media.
You might want to launch something new without abandoning the work that already serves your clients well.
You might want to simplify your business without making it smaller.
You might want to accomplish something ambitious without having to give up every available hour of your life to do it.
That last piece matters to me.
Because a business can hit every goal on paper and still become something you never intended to build.
SUCCESS SHOULD INCLUDE THE LIFE AROUND THE BUSINESS.
One of the reasons many of us build businesses in the first place is because we want some say in how our lives work.
We want flexibility. Autonomy. Meaningful work. Financial stability. Creative freedom. Time with people we love. Space for things that have absolutely nothing to do with business.
And yet, it’s remarkably easy to build a business that slowly consumes the very things we hoped it would make possible.
Not because we made one terrible decision.
Usually, it happens through a series of perfectly reasonable ones.
One more client. One more offer. One more platform. One more commitment. One more opportunity that seems too good to turn down.
Each decision makes sense on its own.
Until one day, the business looks successful from the outside but no longer feels particularly successful to the person running it.
That’s why I keep coming back to intention.
It creates a filter before we get there.
YOU CAN CHANGE THE GOAL.
There’s another thing I like about intentions: they leave room for us to learn.
Sometimes we set a goal with the best information we have, and then life changes. The market changes. Our business changes. We change.
Holding tightly to an old goal simply because we once wrote it down isn’t discipline. Sometimes it’s just refusing to acknowledge new information.
An intention can remain steady even when the goal changes.
Maybe your intention is to build a financially sustainable business without sacrificing the relationships and experiences that matter to you. The exact revenue target, offer mix, schedule, or growth plan that supports that intention may look different three years from now than it does today.
That isn’t failure.
That’s alignment.
You’re allowed to decide that a goal no longer fits the business — or the life — you’re building.
