In my last blogpost I talked about the history of communication. For a generally quick recap here it is.
Humanity used to communicate through non-verbal communication - body language, gestures. Over time we developed language which allowed for us to have a common set of words to use to describe things. That language then also become written which allowed for us to leave pictorial representations of things for us to under later from people that wrote them before us. The rest of the history is us trying to find cheaper, easier, and less costly ways of communicating.
This is the entire history of mankind as it is. We have always been trying to find easier, cheaper, and quicker ways to do things. That does not exclude communication.
At the end of my last blogpost I went on a little bit of a tangent about this word: Intentionality. I argued that this is something that we are leaving out of our communication and we are suffering because of it without even knowing it.
What I would like to do today is define intentionality. I want to give you an understanding of what it is, and I want to help you understand why it is so important.
Intentionality is an investment in your relationships. Not only that, but intentionality is more specifically how much of yourself you are going to put into your relationships.
The longer that it takes for you to communicate something, the more of yourself you have to put into it. It just physically requires more effort. In order for me to talk to you person to person to person it would take a long time.
When I send out a blog post many people are able to listen to it. I don't have to go and say the entire blog post over again, because of technology I am able to record it once and allow for it to be played an unlimited number of times.
This means that there is less intentionality involved in this message than if I were to go to you each, individually, and repeat it back to you. The amount of time required increases the amount of intentionality embodied within that communication.
The inverse is true also. The less time required, the less intentionality. Not only is time required for communication but so is cost. There is a cost to everything.
It is cheaper for me to send a text message than it is for me to send an email. Time is money. The more time you put in, the more the cost is as well.
It is cheaper for me to send an email than it is to send a letter, and it is cheaper for me to send a letter than it is for me to actually drive to the person that I am going to send the letter to.
The more the communication cost, the greater the intentionality involved.
The third component is a lot like the first two. The easier a thing is for me to do, the less intentional it is going to be. It is a lot easier for me to send a text message than it is for me to do a blogcast. And it is a lot easier for me to do a blogcast than it is for me to send individual emails to people.
As you have noticed, I am not just doing a blog, and I am not just doing a podcast, but I actually am creating a blogcast which takes more time and is more difficult. It requires that I know how to use audio editing equipment as well as how to work a website. All of that took time for me to develop those skills, and that time then factors into the amount of intentionality behind that communication.
This podcast is more intentional than just a single blog, and the reason behind it is because of the additional time, the cost, as well as the ease in making it.
I've made the investment into this blogcast because I want to invest in the relationship between you, the listener, and me.
A business person makes an investment into their business. They do that through professionalism. The more professional a person is in their business, the more they are working toward creating something specifically.
Professionalism is to business as intentionality is to your relationships. As a person increases their professionalism that they put towards their work it increases the quality of their business. Just as you put more intentionality into your relationships, it increases the quality of your relationships.
Here is the argument of why we should put more intentionality into our communication and our relationships.
Putting intentionality into a relationship is a lot like putting hard work into a garden. It takes a lot more of your time and your effort. It isn't easy, it cost you a bit. But when you put work into your garden you get really good produce in return (usually).
If you were just to scatter seeds over a patch of dirt and allow for whatever will happen to happen, that will definitely be no way to make a sustainable garden. It is the same thing with intentionality in your relationships.
When you do the hard work of putting more of yourself into your relationships by doing things that take more time or doing things that are not as easy or might cost you more, you are actually producing sustainable relationships.
These relationships then have deep roots that allow for them to stand the weather of life. Not only that but a relationship garden, the one that you have put all of this extra work and effort into, provides so much more than you could handle that you are left with nothing else to do but share it with other people.
Because of this overabundance of produce that comes from your relationships it increases the way that you then interact with other people. You couldn't work very hard on a garden if you were malnourished, but if you had a garden that was providing for you then you find that you have more to give.
It is because you invested in those relationships that you are then filled back up. And you even have more to give away for free.
Maybe this is where people are starting to get this idea that we don't need to invest as much into your relationships. It is this idea called scarcity mindset; there isn't enough to go around and you have to do everything you can by scattering your seeds everywhere in order to make sure that there is enough to fill you back up.
It is the opposite that is true. It is only a garden that is well maintained, where somebody has put a lot of effort into it, that you get the kind of produce that is sustainable.
This is why you don't just walk up to fully formed gardens out in the wild. It takes effort. That effort for our relationships is called intentionality.
So I want to talk about, over the next couple of days, what intentionality looks like in a couple of different situations. It is different. Each relationships requires its own unique set of work just like the plants in your garden require unique things that you have to do for them. Just like a potato doesn't need the same kind of care as a tomato plant, your family does not need the exact same things as your friends do.
Over the next couple of days I'm going to talk about intentionality. Intentionality through the lenses of cost, ease, and time to give you a better understanding of what it is that I am talking about because I firmly believe that, if you invest in your relationships, you will see fruit from it.
We have always been trying to find easier, cheaper, and quicker ways to do things. That does not exclude communication.
Intentionality is an investment in your relationships. Not only that, but intentionality is more specifically how much of yourself you are going to put into your relationships.
The three truths of intentionality:
The less time required, the less intentionality.
The more the communication cost, the greater the intentionality involved.
The easier a thing is for me to do, the less intentional it is going to be.
Putting intentionality into a relationship is a lot like putting hard work into a garden; when you put work into your garden you get really good produce in return (usually).
It is only a garden that is well maintained, where somebody has put a lot of effort into it, that you get the kind of produce that is sustainable.
Bubble Bath Question:
Will you go with me on a journey towards more intentional relationships?
