The Space Between Intention and Action
- Jul 19
- 7 min read
Heidi Richards Mooney is a dynamic professional speaker, celebrated author, seasoned entrepreneur, and Senior Executive Contributor dedicated to empowering individuals and businesses to succeed. As a past president of the Florida Speakers Association, she has inspired countless audiences with her expertise in PR, internet marketing, and brand elevation.
"One day." It's a phrase we've all said. One day I'll write the book. One day I'll start exercising. One day I'll organize my office. One day I'll learn a new skill. One day I'll call that friend, launch that business, take that trip, or finally begin living the life I've been imagining. The truth is, most of us don't struggle with dreaming. We struggle with doing.
Every January, millions of people set ambitious goals. They buy planners, download apps, join gyms, purchase books, and promise themselves that this will be the year everything changes.
Yet within weeks, many of those goals quietly fade into the background, replaced by familiar routines and old habits.
Why? It's tempting to blame a lack of motivation. But I don't think motivation is the real problem. I believe the answer lies in the space between intention and action.
We mistake wanting for commitment
One of the biggest misconceptions we have is believing that wanting something is the same as committing to it. We all have dreams we'd love to pursue, whether that's becoming healthier, writing another book, spending more time with family, or learning a new language. Those intentions are meaningful, but by themselves they don't change our lives. Real transformation begins when we're willing to adjust our schedules, habits, and choices to make room for what truly matters. The moment our calendar reflects our priorities instead of our wishes, intention begins to take the shape of commitment.
Habits always beat motivation
Motivation is a wonderful thing, but it's also one of the least reliable forces in our lives. Some mornings we wake up energized, full of ideas and eager to take on the world. Other days, we'd rather hit the snooze button and postpone our goals until tomorrow. If our progress depends solely on feeling inspired, we'll spend far more time waiting than growing. Habits, on the other hand, don't rely on emotion. They quietly shape our lives through the small actions we repeat day after day.
Consider the story of James Clear. Before becoming one of the world's most influential voices on habit formation, Clear wasn't transformed by a single burst of motivation. After a serious baseball injury in college, he focused on making tiny, consistent improvements, which he later described as getting just one percent better each day. Those small habits eventually became the foundation for his bestselling book, Atomic Habits, which has helped millions of people understand that lasting success rarely comes from dramatic change. It comes from ordinary actions repeated consistently.
The same principle applies to all of us. The person who writes one page every morning eventually finishes a manuscript. The person who walks for twenty minutes after dinner gradually becomes healthier. The person who automatically saves a small amount from every paycheck builds financial security over time. Extraordinary results are rarely the product of extraordinary effort in a single moment. More often, they are the outcome of remarkably ordinary habits practiced faithfully over weeks, months, and years.
Our environment often wins
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to scroll social media for thirty minutes without thinking? Or how difficult it is to eat healthy when temptation is sitting on the kitchen counter?
Our environment influences our decisions far more than we'd like to admit. If your running shoes are buried in the closet, you're less likely to exercise.
If your phone sits beside your bed, you'll probably reach for it before reaching for gratitude. If your notebook is always within arm's reach, you're much more likely to capture ideas before they disappear. Sometimes success isn't about becoming more disciplined. It's about making the right choice the easiest choice.
Small steps create big change
One of the greatest myths about personal growth is that transformation has to be dramatic. We tell ourselves we'll start exercising when we have an hour each day, organize the house when we can dedicate an entire weekend, or write a book when life finally slows down. Unfortunately, that "perfect time" rarely arrives. The truth is, meaningful change almost never begins with a giant leap. It begins with one small decision followed by another, repeated consistently over time.
Imagine someone who dreams of writing a book but believes they need several uninterrupted hours to make any real progress. Weeks pass, then months, and the manuscript never gets started. One day, they make a simple commitment to write just one page every morning before checking email. At first, it doesn't seem like much. But after a month, they have thirty pages. After six months, they have nearly two hundred. Before the year is over, they're holding a finished manuscript in their hands. The book wasn't written in one inspired weekend. It was written one page at a time.
The same principle applies throughout our lives. One networking conversation can lead to a lifelong friendship or business partnership. One healthy meal often becomes the motivation for another. One thoughtful apology can begin to heal a damaged relationship. We tend to underestimate the power of small actions because their impact isn't always immediate. Yet when those actions are repeated with intention, they create ripple effects far greater than we could have imagined. In the end, it isn't the occasional grand gesture that changes our lives, it's the quiet consistency of the little things we choose to do every day.
Identity comes before achievement
Years ago, I noticed something fascinating. People who achieve lasting success don't simply change what they do. They change how they see themselves. Instead of saying, "I want to write a book." They begin by saying, "I'm a writer." Instead of saying, "I need to exercise." They become "Someone who values health." Instead of saying, "I hope to become a leader someday."
They begin making decisions like a leader today. Our habits naturally rise or fall to match the identity we believe about ourselves. Every small action becomes a vote for the person we're becoming.
Give yourself grace
One of the biggest obstacles to lasting change is the belief that a single misstep erases all of our progress. We skip one workout and convince ourselves we're not committed to being healthy. We miss a day of writing and wonder if we're really authors after all. We enjoy an unhealthy meal and decide we've already failed, so we might as well give up. But life doesn't work that way. Progress has never been about perfection, it's about persistence. Every meaningful journey includes detours, setbacks, and days when life gets in the way. What matters isn't whether we stumble, it's whether we're willing to begin again.
Think about learning to ride a bicycle. Almost no one climbs on for the first time and rides away without falling. We wobble, lose our balance, scrape a knee or two, and then get back on. We don't decide we're "not bicycle people" because we fell. We simply understand that falling is part of learning. Personal growth works the same way. The healthiest people aren't those who never miss a workout, they're the ones who return to exercise after they do. Successful authors aren't the ones who write every single day without exception, they're the ones who come back to the page after life interrupts. The most successful people are simply willing to return to the habits, the goals, and the person they're becoming, again and again.
So, why don't we stick to our goals?
Maybe we've been asking the wrong question. Perhaps it isn't, "Why can't I stay motivated?" Perhaps it's "What kind of person do I need to become, and what small habit will help me become that person?"
When we stop chasing motivation and start designing habits that support our values, everything begins to shift. The gap between intention and action starts to shrink. Dreams become plans. Plans become routines. Routines become habits. Habits become the foundation of a life that once existed only in our imagination.
One small action
Over the course of my career, I've had the privilege of helping entrepreneurs build businesses, guiding aspiring authors as they write the books they've always dreamed of publishing, and encouraging leaders to step into roles they never imagined possible. No matter their background or goals, one lesson has revealed itself time and again, success rarely arrives in a single dramatic moment. Instead, it is quietly built through the ordinary decisions that few people ever notice or applaud.
It's found in the five pages written before breakfast while the rest of the house is still asleep. It's in the phone call you almost didn't make because you were afraid of hearing "no." It's the evening walk you chose instead of another hour on the couch, the handwritten note of encouragement that brightened someone's day, or the promise you made to yourself and kept. None of these moments seems particularly significant on its own. Yet over time, they become the building blocks of a meaningful life.
When we look back, we rarely remember one grand decision that changed everything. More often, we discover that our lives were shaped by hundreds of small choices that, taken together, moved us steadily toward the person we wanted to become.
So instead of asking yourself what enormous goal you hope to accomplish this year, ask a different question, What one small action can I take today that my future self will thank me for? Because in the space between intention and action isn't just where success is found.
Author's reflection
When I finished writing The Expectant Author, people often asked how I finally completed a project that had lived in my heart for more than twenty years. The answer wasn't a burst of inspiration or extraordinary discipline. It was a series of ordinary decisions to return to the manuscript, one page, one story, one chapter at a time. Looking back, I realize I wasn't just writing a book. I was becoming the kind of person who finished what she started. That's the real transformation. Every meaningful goal asks us not only to accomplish something, but to become someone.
Read more from Heidi Richards Mooney
Heidi Richards Mooney, Author, Coach & Entrepreneur
Heidi Richards Mooney is a dynamic professional speaker, celebrated author, seasoned entrepreneur, and Senior Executive Contributor dedicated to empowering individuals and businesses to succeed. As a past president of the Florida Speakers Association, she has inspired countless audiences with her expertise in PR, internet marketing, and brand elevation. A small business owner and PR strategist, Heidi specializes in helping clients amplify their online presence, craft compelling narratives, and achieve measurable results. She empowers her clients to get their websites and online profiles noticed by leveraging innovative Public Relations campaigns, capitalizing on achievements to secure media attention, and building a consistent and influential brand voice.
