SET THE INTENTION

If you’re unsure about what you

want, you’ll end up with a lot

of things you’re unsure of.

Before going after your goals, you have to know what you want. You cannot attain that which you’re unsure about. You wouldn’t go into a restaurant and say, ‘I think I want the vegetable curry,’ when placing your order. You either want it or you don’t.

If you’re confused about your intention, the results that follow will reflect that. For example, if the waiter asks you how spicy you want the vegetable curry but say you’re not sure, IT COULD MEAN you can receive any level of spice. If you then find it too spicy, it would be your own fault because you didn’t give clear instructions.

Setting the right goal is everything. It has to reflect what you deeply desire – not what you think you should want. For many years, the things I believed I wanted were actually only to impress other people. Sometimes I’d achieve these things and feel surprised that they didn’t satisfy me.

Your goals should reflect who you are as a person. They should be the things you think about all the time that you know will improve the quality of your life. Having materialistic desires is fine; only those who have completely transcended their ego don’t have any. Nevertheless, your goals should mean a lot to you. For example, someone might want a bigger house to raise a large family in, so they can share good times together. There’s greater meaning to this goal than wanting the bigger house just to prove how rich you are.

Once you make an intention clear, the Universe will work in miraculous ways. When we put what we want out there, the manifestation process begins and things start to unfold in our favour. Our dreams come to life.

J. Cole is a renowned American rapper, writer and producer, who previously had jobs in advertising and debt collecting. In a 2011 interview, Cole claimed that after watching the rapper 50 Cent’s movie Get Rich or Die Tryin’, he was inspired to make himself a T-shirt carrying the bold statement: ‘Produce for Jay-Z or Die Tryin’. In the interview, Cole said he thought he could take a different route to becoming a rapper by first becoming noticed as a producer. He wanted to create an avenue to his main goal, and that’s why he created the T-shirt.

After wearing the T-shirt in the hope that someone from the music industry or Jay-Z himself would recognize him, it wasn’t until several years later that something amazing happened: with his goal set and his great work ethic partnered with self-belief, Cole was contacted by Jay-Z and was later signed to his record label Roc Nation. Cole has now rapped with Jay-Z on several tracks and produced them himself.

"Your destiny is determined by the intention that lies behind your every thought and action."