Embracing the New Year: Building my best life with goal setting part 2
Embracing the New Year: Building my best life with goal setting part 2
Bringing what I want to the front of my mind
I hope you have been looking at your wants list and adding or subtracting items over the past week.
You may have changed the wording in your vision statements a few times to reflect what you see as most important for this year. Ensure that your wants for this year align with your current situation and commitments. It’s important to set goals that are big but realistic. Saying I want to look like the girl in the image above is just not going to cut it :/ However, I can still imagine that I look like her :)
Sometimes while writing my vision statements I have to go back and add something to my wants list because I realise I’m trying to put it in my vision statement. I also check my wants for the year and make sure they are all covered by my vision statements.
My goals setting action is like a squishy blob. I like to reshape it constantly. Not just at the beginning of the year.
My goal setting framework
My mind likes to work with some of the details after getting a wispy overall big picture. I know it can get confusing for those I am trying to explain it to. So my Part 1 post was detailed steps on how to identify your goals and sort them into a timeframe. I tend to interchange the terms wants and goals. These items are just things or behaviours or experiences that we would like to have in our lives one day. There was a little bit of work on the life areas so you don’t neglect an area like family time or finances and set all your goals around personal growth or business.
As I go through the first details I start to see the big picture more clearly.
So here is my framework…
Step 1
Write out the wants list. Write down everything you might want to do in your life. You need this list because if you don’t know what you want from your life you can’t work towards it.
Step 2
Go through the items one at a time and put a time frame next to each one. Use number of years. You need to do this step because you physically can’t do it all right now and some things just have to go in a certain order.
Step 3
Add the items to a time frame layout. You need this step because you may have way too many things you want to do in 1 year or you may have some items in the wrong place. It’s easy to get too excited about taking control of your life. Common sense starts to kick in at this stage.
Step 4
Go through the wants/goals you have listed for the coming year and try to see a pattern. The most obvious pattern will be life area groups or subgroups. You need this step to bring your vision statements into view.
Step 5
Compose your vision statements for the year. Each statement consists of a what and a why. You need this step because sometimes we just want something without thinking about it. Writing a what and why vision statement makes you challenge your wants. It’s never too late in the process to change something. If you can’t come up with a why or maybe you put it on the wants list because your parents expect it of you, then it’s time to think again. Trying to please others is not taking control of your life. This is a harsh lesson I’ve been coming to grips with.
Step 6
Write up answers to a set of clarifying questions for each vision statement. You need this step because it’s absolutely necessary to come up with a few actions that you can do now or very soon that move you closer to your vision and all your wants/goals.
Continuing to Plan
You might be thinking that my framework doesn’t include SMART goals which are all the rage. If you look closely it does have all the same steps. I just don’t think goal setting is as clear cut as the SMART system implies.
This week I am continuing with writing my vision statements based on the groupings I came up with in step 5.
Vision 1
Set up new habit building routines for my personal, business and financial activities to simplify how I get things done.
Vision 2
Set up the moon cycle planner for each quarter including 3 habits to work on in detail for the first quarter. This process forms part of my lifestyle blog content. (I already sense that my energy and moods follow the moon phases so that’s why I am doing this)
Vision 3
Put 80% of my energy into eating healthy and getting my weight down to a healthy 60kg.
Vision 4
Schedule time to quilt and do jewellery so I finish a quilt and start to make money from my Etsy jewellery shop.
Above is my vision statements written out neatly in my A5 Goals journal.
Why aren’t all my wants in the vision statements?
Over the past 5 years or so I have developed habits and routines that make it easy for me to continue with lots of my wants. Things like Exercise, skin care, journaling, capsule wardrobe, savings, travel, visiting family are already part of my best life.
I include them in my wants list because I need to be reminded to keep up with them. They need to be kept in front of me but I don’t need to work out how I will do them.
If you are starting something new you will need to include it in your vision statements.
I have lumped my new habits into vision 1 without actually listing them all. I have put an H next to them in my wants list for this year. I have also made a separate list after my wants list of all the new things that I will be trying to include in my best life over this year.
Questions for step 6
To get more clarity with what I want for the coming year I go through a series of prompts.
Here I work through the prompts with Vision 1.
I ground and sustain myself by…
…Maintaining my old habits of self-care. (This loosely relates to the vision)
Action Step 1…
…Create draft routines for 8 new habits.
Action step 2…
…Choose 1 habit routine to start with and work on perfecting the steps in the routine.
These action steps lead me to my goal of…
…Build 8 new habits into my life during this year. (Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound all in one short sentence. But I didn’t plan it that way. Is this a skill I have learned over the years?)
Reaching this goal will enable me to…
…Be less stressed and be effortlessly productive as well as increase my passive income so I can travel more.
This fits with my vision of…
…Setting up new habit routines for my personal, business and financial activities to simplify how I get things done.
I work out my plans in pencil I my rough journal first. I copy these clarifying prompts and answers into my A5 Goals journal. The more you read and write them the easier they are to remember and apply.
A Final Word
I have grouped the first action step for each vision with a check box next to each one. These are the things I need to get done first. I haven’t quite completed any of them yet because I have been taking time off around the new moon when my energy is lowest.
I have about 20 A5 pages written out in my A5 Goals journal. I have added some lists to help make sitting down to sew or do jewellery require less thinking. I have a list of possible blog post topics and I have started a habit of writing every day for at least 15 mins.
I feel successful!
It has taken me about 3 weeks to plan and write out my goals and then rewrite them. I have just started moving forward. I have my moon cycle pages set up and have a plan for each day on odd and even weeks to get small steps done for each of my visions.
I have added part 2 of the worksheet set to my shop. It includes pages to write your vision statements and pages with the clarifying prompts. There are pages for list writing and routine writing for new habits.
P.S.
I am working on an idea to monetise this newsletter so that the information is in the free part with links to my shops for work sheets and patterns etc. The paid version will have links to download the work sheets and patterns etc as part of the newsletter subscription.
Cheers,
Val