High Intention Low Attachment: How to Achieve Your Goals With More Ease

For years, I thought that anxiety, headaches, and stress were the price of achievement.

I had a reccuring dream of running for my life while armed men hunted me down.

Then I heard the phrase “High Intention Low Attachment” (HILA). It completely changed the way I approached my goals. I wasn’t so scared of failure anymore. Little did I know that my understanding of the concept would evolve over many years.

First, I shared this mantra in my book, Don’t Let The Fear Win. Then I shared it with clients like Andrew Capland, who doubled his old tech salary while working a fraction of the time. And now I want to share a brand new version of it with you.

Let’s start with the obvious question:

What Does High Intention Low Attachment Mean?

The earliest reference I can find to this phrase is in The Success Principles by Jack Canfield. It’s only mentioned in one chapter of the book. Here’s what it says:

"If you want to remain calm and peaceful as you go through life, you have to have high intention and low attachment. You do everything you can to create your desired outcomes, and then you let it go.”

A simple way to interpret this is: “Do your best and let go of the rest.”

But let’s dive deeper, because the magic is in the nuance.

Intention = the extent to which you know what you want and your level of effort in moving towards it.

Attachment = the extent to which you believe your happiness depends on getting what you want and your level of resistance to the current reality.

If we break this down further, there were four basic ways we can navigate life.

Here’s a handy 2x2 grid to visualize them:

Four quadrants based on your level of intention + attachment

Let’s dive into each of these squares one by one.

High Intention, Low Attachment

I've found this to be the optimal place to come from when you're pursuing your goals. It's what flow feels like. When you are in a state of high intention and low attachment, you are actively creating the life you want in the present without clutching too tightly to your future vision. If you start to fight reality, or turn your preferences into cravings, you move down to High Intention, High Attachment.

In the meantime, enjoy yourself! Stay focused on the process, take time to rest, and avoid tying your self-worth to your achievements.

High Intention, High Attachment

This is the place that most high-achievers come from and it's where we tend to get needy. We have something we want (which is fine) but we’re attached to getting it. It’s as though our self-worth and identity is tied up in the outcome. So we end up chasing our goals in way that creates stress and anxiety.

If this is where you're at, let go of attachment by focusing on what you already have. Remember that everything is okay no matter what happens. The more content you are, the more you'll achieve in the long run. I call this The Performance Paradox.

Low Intention, High Attachment

This is what happens when we're highly attached to the external outcomes in our life (we get frustrated when things go wrong), but we're not being intentional about what we want in the first place. This is where despair lives. When you’re in this place, it feels like you’ll never get out. It’s easy to turn to addictive behaviors like drinking in order to numb your feelings, which only compounds the issue.

In order to get out of this state, you’ll need to raise your level of intention and lower your level of attachment. I’ve found that it’s usually easier to let go of attachment first. Much of life is out of your control. Surrendering to this will help you create the space you need for your next true intention to come in.

Low Intention, Low Attachment

This is how you feel on a beach vacation. You’re at peace, but not particularly inspired to do anything. When you’re in this state, you aren't attached to a specific outcome. You feel pretty neutral about everything. But you also aren’t experiencing the excitement and level of performance that come with an intention. I call this “The Stoner Square.” It can be a beautiful place, but you can’t stay there forever.

Find something that matters to you and start taking action (thereby raising your intention). Don’t force it, though. You may need to be still and listen for a while to get the clarity you need.

👋 Did you know I have a book full of concepts like this one? It’s called Don’t Let The Fear Win and it’ll help you grow your business. Download a free chapter here.

The Intention Cycle: Why It’s So Hard To Stay In Flow

When I first learned about HILA, it seemed like the panacea I’d been searching for. If I could just stay in that top right square, I would be freakin’ unstoppable!

No anxiety. No depression. No days off. Money raining down on me all day every day.

As you can see, I was still quite early on in my spiritual journey.

I quickly learned the difference between understanding a concept and practicing it.

One month, I’d feel totally in the flow. Massive action! The next, I’d be hiding in my home office thinking about my life purpose and wanting to burn it all down. This happened for YEARS.

One day, I told my coach, Marita, about this cycle. She said, “Let’s just draw it out.”

So I did.

Boy, it felt good to be able to see what the cycle looked like.

But I knew it was still a work in progress.

I spent the next year observing myself as I went through the cycle and trying to understand what was going on.

Then, one day, I remembered HILA.

I realized that the mantra mapped on perfectly to the motivational cycle in my business.

HILA wasn’t something I could embody 100% of the time (or at least I haven’t figured out how to do so yet). It was one part of a natural cycle that I could learn to move through with more grace.

It looks like this:

When I was in flow, I’d make the mistake of identifying with my business. I’d lose the playfulness and enjoyment that I had in the beginning and start grasping for a certain result.

Then, I’d be caught trying to control reality and get stressed. I’d start dropping our Chemex and getting frustrated at the yoga teacher. Eventually, I’d either succeed at what I’d set out to do or I’d fail.

Either way, I’d feel despair. If I succeeded, I was left with an empty feeling. I’d be forced to confront the idea that what I thought would make me happy had just given me a temporary thrill. And if I failed, I felt like a failure. I couldn’t separate who I was from the results that I got. Eventually, I would accept reality and forgive myself.

This brought me into peace. I’d start taking more walks outside, spending time with friends, and appreciating the beauty of little moments. No more attachment. But this would eventually lead to boredom. I wasn’t engaged in a worthwhile endeavor. If I did a good job listening, I’d eventually be pulled by a new intention that got me into action.

This cycle could happen over the course of months, weeks, or days. I started talking with other entrepreneurs about this, including my friend Ben Krueger of Cashflow Podcasting. The cycle resonated with him and so we worked on it together.

Hopefully, sharing this cycle will help normalize it for others.

Although I still get caught in the cycle regularly, I can move through it more quickly now. I spend more time in flow because I know what to focus on in each box.

When you’re in flow, trust the process. Try to keep things playful, enjoy the ride, and remember that you’re not in control of the final outcome. You can only do your best. Things like meditation, rest, gratitude, and community will allow you to stay in this zone of peak performance for much longer.

When you’re under stress, it’s an opportunity to grow. If you’re able to, return to HILA by remembering that you’ll be okay no matter what happens. Otherwise, learn the lessons that come with success or failure.

When you feel despair, accept things exactly as they are. Forgive yourself. Grieve the loss of what could have been. And stay away from addictive behaviors that will keep you stuck here. Find healthy ways to rest and rejuvinate.

When you feel peace, don’t force yourself into action. Create space and listen for the next true intention to come through. This may take longer than you’d like, but it’s important not to rush into something that you aren’t intrinsically motivated by.

Wherever you are on the cycle right now, that’s okay. It will soon change.

And here’s something encouraging: Each time you come back into flow, you’ll be coming back at a higher level of performance than before. That’s called growth.

👋 If you enjoyed this post, you’ll love my book — Don’t Let The Fear Win. It’s all about how to navigate the inner game of entrepreneurship. Start reading for free:

Get A Free Chapter

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How does awareness of this cycle changes how it works?

A: I think awareness can do two things: 1) It can make you patient and compassionate with yourself in the more challenging parts of the cycle. You know it’s not personal to you, it’s temporary, and you have a sort of map for where you’re at. 2) Partially as a result of #1, I think awareness can help lengthen or shorten different steps.

For example, I’d like to think I don’t stay in despair for as long in general because I know to let go of attachment to move into peace. Having said that, I’ve had time when I’ve been depressed for long periods of time despite being aware of the cycle so it’s not like you get to shortcut the human experience completely.

Q: Is it impossible to move through the cycle in any way other than you describe?

A: In my experience, the stages of the cycle are relatively consistent. For example, I can’t think of a time I’ve gone off-cycle and gone straight from despair to flow without going through peace. But it’s theoretically possible to “skip” parts of the cycle to get back to HILA sooner if you can raise intention or lower attachment proactively.

Q: Do you believe that every human moves through this cycle? Are some people operating on a different system?

Every human goes through cycles - we’re seasonal creatures and our emotions are always changing. But it’s not clear to me that everyone goes through the specific cycle I've outlined.

I also think some people experience this cycle is specific domains of life and not others. For example, I don’t experience this cycle at all when it comes to my physical fitness and training habits. Working out and eating right has always come easily to me and there’s no clinging or stress that I cycle through. But when I used to be a weight loss coach I saw this cycle play out all the time with clients.

For me the cycle shows up most in my work. I think it has to do with the parts of life where we attach our worth to and thus experience outcome anxiety.

Q: Are some people more prone to get stuck in the cycle, and if so why do you think this happens?

I worked on the model with a fellow entrepreneur, and it’s resonated a lot with clients. So it’s possible that the cycle might be more resonant with creative or entrepreneurial types who are mildly bi-polar by nature. See quote below:

"I think 100 percent of creative people are going to experience existential depression..." — Eric Maisel, "The Van Gogh Blues"

Like any formula or mental model, this one is imperfect (though useful). It points to deeper truths about the human experience but it can’t capture them completely.

Image source: Topshelf Records via giphy.com

High Intention Low Attachment: How to Achieve Your Goals With More Ease