What does it mean that the implementation intention?

When X happens I will do Y — this specific format dramatically increases follow-through.

Example: You have tried for months to meditate every morning. Your goal intention — 'I want to meditate daily' — is sincere. But each morning, you wake up, check your phone, start coffee, and suddenly it is 8:15 and you are already behind. So you rewrite the commitment in a different format: 'When I set my coffee mug on the counter after pouring, I will sit on the cushion and start a ten-minute timer.' The next morning, your hand sets the mug down, and something fires — not willpower, but recognition. The cue triggers the plan. You sit. Within two weeks the meditation is no longer a decision. It is a reflex with a coffee-scented trigger.

Try this: Choose one goal you have been failing to act on consistently. Write a standard goal intention first: 'I want to ___.' Now rewrite it as a precise implementation intention using the if-then format: 'When [specific situation/cue], I will [specific action].' The situation must be concrete enough that you would recognize it instantly — a time, a location, a preceding action, an internal state. The action must be specific enough that there is zero ambiguity about what 'doing it' looks like. Write this implementation intention on a card and place it where you will see it tomorrow morning. Execute it for seven days and note what happens.