Tenacity, passion and goals
What sets your soul on fire? Do you remember the last time you had an inner knowing that you CAN and WILL achieve your dreams? Today’s blog post discusses the importance of passion and tenacity when meeting your goals.
Tag: goals
Goal Check-In
Simply put, this year has had a handful of twists and unexpected turns. Whilst I do enjoy roller coasters (they tickle me and I laugh and laugh), I’d rather not experience anything similar in real life. However, as we all know, rarely do things go {read more}
Priority & Focus
In this post, we discuss prioritization and focus. Separately or together, these two tools can reduce stress, increase the feeling of accomplishment and improve personal success rates.
It may be helpful to have a piece of paper or journal to write down your thoughts.
Perspective
You’ve probably seen the “advice” available on the internet saying:
Swap out the words ‘too busy’ with ‘it isn’t a priority’.
In my opinion, this can help highlight two sides of the same coin. The first being where I am wasting time and energy. And the second being where I need to set a clearer personal boundary with my time.
Last month I spent more time than anticipated cooking and making changes to my home. As a result, my mindfulness goals took a hit. The activities I spent time on were important and worthwhile, however not originally my priority.
Pre-pandemic my calendar was packed with travel, work, family and social events. Often I found myself ‘too busy’ when in reality I needed to truly sit down with my calendar and prioritize.
Seasons
Prioritization and optimization of time are directionally helpful. Before prioritizing it is important to know that we are human and there are only so many hours in the day. The fact is there are seasons in life when we just have too much we are trying to accomplish. In those seasons, prioritization and efficiency might not be ‘enough’. Instead, activities need to be paused, responsibility needs to be further shared or additional help is required.
In addition, recognizing the place flexibility and adaptability have in life is also important. Certainly, sometimes, in-the-moment prioritization is necessary, however it should be the exception. If you find yourself having to consistently put aside what you had planned to accommodate in-the-moment ‘needs’, most likely something is awry.
Typically too much if this type of reprioritization leads to finding ourselves in a life we don’t even enjoy. Maybe evening finding ourselves, not just months, but sometimes years away from a goal or dream. This scary moment is when we need to get back in front of the mirror and do two things:
- Figure out if our goals and dreams are still what we want. After all, if we find ourselves not prioritizing something for a long time perhaps it as simple as it is no longer important.
- Begin the prioritization and focusing process to make progress on that goal and dream.
Now what?
Have you thought through your goals and wishes? If not, make it your number one priority. Maybe even stop reading right now and write down the top 3 things you’d like to accomplish this year. My goal setting post from the first of the year may provide inspiration.
Once you have your goals front of mind, first, recognize the steps it may take to accomplish each one. Next, note down the progress you have previously made and how you are feeling about the goal today. (For your reference, two of my progress reports for 2021 from this year are: January Mid-Month and February Start).
Before prioritizing, it can be helpful to put the associated length of time next to each activity.
Priority Setting Time!
Now that you have a handful of smaller pieces related to each of your goals, it is time to prioritize and schedule. Priority may be obvious. For example, if you have an exam coming up – studying for the exam will become the priority.
In some seasons, priority is an independent decision. This vast freedom can quickly cause lack of direction and feeling lost. If this is your current season, I recommend completing the purpose setting exercise.
In either scenario force rank the goal itself and then the tasks within. Now is time to sit down with a calendar. Start scheduling blocks of time for the tasks related to your goals.
Tip: For higher priority goals, block DOUBLE the time. For lower priority goals, block an additional 15 minutes.
Yup – that means if you think something will take 1 hour, block yourself 2 full hours. Make the commitment to use the time scheduled. The extra time allows for a calmer pace, more margin and gives yourself the space to feel at ease.
In summary, proactive prioritization results in healthy personal boundaries!
Focus
Now that prioritization and scheduling are complete, it is time to focus. Focusing during the blocked times WILL result in increased peace, better outputs (this blog is a great example: jk jk) and a higher chance of getting into the flow state.
Just think of how relaxed you would feel knowing all of your activities are scheduled and the time you have blocked is dedicated to concentration of one task. No more worrying about what has to be done – the time will already be set aside!
If procrastination is a trait, this exercise will at the very least illuminate the consequence of your chosen delay. (Do you really want to trade in sleep, exercise or time with loved ones?).
Action
Step 1: What are your top priorities right now?
Step 2: Next, think about the last 3 days. How did you spend the majority of your time?
- If you spent the majority of your time and energy on your top priorities yay! Keep it up.
- If you spent the majority of your time on less important or less impactful activities, it’s time to realign!
Step 3: Realign the next 3 days to focus and spend the most time and energy on the top priorities. If these 3 days are blissful, rise and repeat.
- Schedule blocks of time for your priorities.
- Add margin into your schedule.
- Focus and ENJOY!
Last Tip: A priority CAN include relaxing - so don't feel bad scheduling Netflix time. :)
Results
This practice can take effort and the ability to say ‘no’ to the things that simply don’t fit. My hope is that your next 3 days are blissful, however the long term results reveal the true measure. Therefore, if at first you do not succeed, try again! The immediate results may feel good but strange. Most importantly, the long term application will result in accomplishing big goals!
About the photo
The feature picture of this post is from a trip to the West Coast I was able to take in 2017. I made it a priority to stay in touch with friends from Philly and to travel outside of my work travel. At the time, I was living in Connecticut and they had moved to San Diego, California. This picture also represents bliss to me. Being near water, memories of good food, laughter and gorgeous sunsets.
Funny also how now, during the pandemic, I wish I could more easily be home to see my family and friends from New Jersey.
How you doin’?
As we end January 2021, it seemed fitting to make a late 90’s “Friends” Reference… But seriously, let’s check in! How are you doing? Many of us started the year off with so much hopeful anticipation, it is hard to believe we the first full {read more}
Creating a playlist to help achieve your dreams!
Thank you for so many sweet comments, texts and messages on the vision board and goal-setting posts. Happiness fills my heart to know that this site is becoming a source of inspiration! Now that we’ve explored the visual and verbal side to our goals, it {read more}
Goal Setting
Over the years, goal setting has become the one habit that has brought the most deliberate success. One of these days we will dive a bit deeper into why goal setting did not originally come natural to me and how I have cultivated my mind to want to sit down and organize my life in this way.
Yesterday’s post was potentially more fun for most. I can assure you I would much rather dream big, and find pictures that represent the aesthetic I’m going for rather than sit down and write out specifically what I am going to do to get where I want to go. As much as the writing out part is not as fun for me, it does produce massive results through specific focus and solidifying the potential steps.
I have also found that writing my goals and plans allows me to truly reflect on what I actually want. The process of writing out the words allows me to put the intangible into a tangible form where I can fully express truly what it is I am wanting and why.
Let’s get started:
Fortunately we live in a time where information is so accessible and goal setting doesn’t have to be a re-creation of the wheel each time, HOWEVER, and that is a big however, I do believe finding ones own techniques to get to your goals is most important. What works for me, or anyone else, might not necessary work for you.
If you are new to this, please use this as a guide but always remember to put your own spin on things, test different ways out and determine what works BEST for you. When it comes to goal setting, something I found is that the harder I had to ‘effort’ to make something happen, the more likely it just wasn’t for me. The things that were for me came with hard work, small attitude adjustments and once in awhile a pep talk but I wouldn’t feel like I was uphill the entire way.
This post will go through a goal setting strategy using the focus areas from my vision board creation. Enjoy!
Be present.
Whether it be my daily journaling, monthly reflections or yearly goal setting, my first step is to fully be present. Meaning, set aside any distractions. Give yourself an ample amount of time to complete this exercise.
Typically, I will make some coffee or tea, put some soothing music on and do even 5 minutes of meditation before I begin.
Theme & Focus Areas.
Theme
It is helpful to have already selected a theme for your year, this should be something somewhat broad, potentially just a word that means something to you. I talked a bit about this in my vision board post and gave some ideas, check it out here. My theme for 2021 is: CREATE.
My word of the year came easily to me this season because I knew I was ready to step into a season of decreasing my consumption of media and increasing my output. Being a creator has been something long overdue for me and I knew by using this word to theme my year it would be a daily reminder of my purpose in life.
In years past my word of the year has not come as easily. Last year it was ‘Celebrate’ and well… we all know how that went (insert laugh track here).
The important part when selecting your theme is that when you read the word or see it, it speaks to you and has meaning to you.
Focus Areas
If you have created focus areas during your vision board session, or have particular categories of goals in mind, start by writing those down, almost as an outline.
As an example my focus areas for 2021 are:
- Mindfulness
- Fitness, Nutrition & Self Care
- Hustle & Create
- Enjoy Hobbies: new & old
Sometimes I create my focus areas AFTER I write down all my goals, but always after I brainstorm. It can be more straight forward to have some goals in mind and then simply categorize them versus starting off with your focus areas already known.
Something to keep in mind, especially for those doing this for the first time – try to keep things in smaller lists, dream big but organize into manageable bites. For this reason, I have decided this year to have only 4 focus areas.
In previous years I was not organizing my goals in this manner and often would feel scattered or overwhelmed. This way, each day when working toward my goals I can do even 15 minutes of an activity and feel accomplished!
Goals.
It’s time to set your goals. At this point, you have given yourself the space to DREAM BIG, organize your thoughts and get clear on how you want the year to feel, as well as categorize into your top focus areas. Now is the time to be realistic and most importantly, EXCITED. Once this step is complete you will be well on your way!
Using your previous brainstorm and theme for the year. List up to 3 goals per focus area. It will be important that each goal has 3 parts:
- Name
- Specific Description
- Date Expected to Accomplish
Let’s get real.
Whenever I have embarked on any type of personal development or goal setting, the most encouraging examples are personal and from the heart. To keep things real, here are my goals, by focus area for 2021; I have decided to timebox my goals into month, so these are specific to January 2021. I will provide updates on progress 🙂
1. Mindfulness
- Daily Meditation Practice
- Daily journal, prayer and bible study before the day begins
- Read at least 15 minutes per day
2. Healthy Body
- Yoga 2x per week for an hour each
- Strength & Cardio 3x per week
- Hiking 2x per month
3. Career & Hustle
- Create realistic individual development plan using tool at work & update system
- Create blogging schedule & expand audience x 3
4. Hobbies (New & old)
- Improve upon photography by taking class
- Try one new thing with a friend and document experience
I tend to be rather intense when I set goals, so one of the things I’d like to keep in mind as I go about January, is to make sure I am enjoying the process and not just making a tick mark at the end of each day!
Okay! Now it is your turn!
If you are up for it, comment below your top goals or just one you are most excited about!
Creating a Vision Board
Look Forward Today is the last day of 2020 and we now have the opportunity to look forward into 2021and all it has to offer! The start of a new year (and even a new month to be honest) has always made me a tiny {read more}