Planning & Goal Setting 101

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Are you concerned that your best days are behind you; that the rest is going to be downhill from here? If you don’t make any changes to take your life back, that absolutely may be the case!

As we age, it is true that our lives, health and outlook changes, but our spirit and life do not need to grow old and weary. You can keep that same wonder and amazement for the world that you felt as a child if you choose to keep it. The world is filled with undiscovered things and experiences that are waiting for you to see, feel and hear them!

There was a time in my life where I had no plan or goals. I was floating along waiting for life to happen to me. Each day went by without purpose and although I may have had fun, I found that I was living my life based on what everyone else thought I should do or thought should be important to me. This left me feeling empty, unsatisfied with life and completely lost.

So I vowed to take my life back and made it my own. The universe had given me a blank canvas and I was going to make it the beautiful life that I felt it could be. For all of the things that I wanted to try, but told myself things like “I can’t” or “I’d like to try that, but”, I started to seriously ask myself “Why Not”?

If my answer was that I just didn’t have the skills or knowledge to do these things yet, then I went out and got myself the skills and knowledge.

If my answer was because I had held myself back from doing them based on something that someone had said or because of fear of looking silly, it wasn’t even an option – I was doing them! To prove to myself that I could.

For instance, I was TERRIFIED of singing…seriously terrified. I had someone close to me once tell me how bad my singing voice was and this moment scarred me. I didn’t allow myself to sing, ever from that point forward. I told myself that I couldn’t do it. Then one day, I decided that was enough of that. I found a voice instructor who helped me to find my voice and find that it could actually sound pretty good. I will never perform in front of millions (and I don’t have a desire to), but I can now go to Karaoke and enjoy myself with the rest of them!

What did I find when I started doing more and more of these things that were important to me?

• I found myself again. By allowing myself to try things with an open mind and heart, I learned the things that I liked or didn’t like and I even kept an inventory of these items on my phone so that it was clear to me.
• I gained confidence. With each experience I allowed myself to have (both small or large), my life started to feel more like mine again.
• I cared less about what others thought. Part of this was a personal choice, but the majority of it was that it just felt good to be living authentically to me again.
• I saw my talents and skills shine. Our abilities and boundaries are nearly limitless if we give ourselves the chance to try things out.
• I felt happy and satisfied. For the first time since I was a kid, I started to feel satisfied with my life.

More importantly…could you feel these same results? Absolutely! Here are 5 easy steps to starting to creating a plan for your life:

1. Create your bucket list
   Take the next 20-30 minutes to brainstorm and write down all of the things that you would like to do in your life if you had the opportunity.
   
   1. What would you do if you won the lottery?
   2. List any items where you think “I would really like to try that, but…”
   3. List the things where you tell yourself, “That sounds fun or exciting, but I can’t”
   4. If you were on your deathbed, which things would you feel regretful about not doing or experiencing?
   5. Are there certain things that you LOVED to do as a child but now no longer do since you’ve grown up? (e.g., colouring, playing in the mud, etc)
   6. Are the things that you could/used to lose yourself for hours doing?
   7. Some possible areas to consider are:
      1. Career – is there a job that you consider to be “the coolest in the world”? Or perhaps you’ve always found rocks to be super-interesting and would like to be a geologist. Have you been told countless times that you would make a really great ____?
      2. Family – If you were to die today, would you regret not spending enough time with your loved ones and letting them know how much you care? Are there certain relationships that you have let slip but want to improve? New ones you want to develop?
      3. Finances – Are you drowning in debt? Always behind?
      4. Education – Are there areas that you have always been interested in pursuing, but don’t have the appropriate skills/schooling for? Maybe it is time?
      5. Creativity – Do you/did you used to love creating things? Paintings? Music?
      6. Physical – Do you feel like you need to get moving more? Are there certain activities that you would like to try or used to love?
      7. Pleasure – How do you experience pleasure? Do you take time to bask in the warmth of the sunshine, feel the wind, make memories with those important to you? How do you want to?
      8. Giving Back – Are there ways that you want to help the world, the community or a particular person?
2. Review your Bucket list:
   Are any items on your list because someone else wants you to do them or because you want to prove something to someone else?  If so, remove these items. Doing things because other people think that you should do them typically leaves us unsatisfied at the end.  Keep your list about you and what you want to achieve in your life – let this come from your heart.
3. Break It Down Yo!
   From your “bucket list”, select 1 item that is important to you and you would like to complete within the next 1-3 months. For that item, complete the following:
   
   1. Create a Goal Note: A goal must be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound…you must be able to clearly know what you have to do, by when and it must be do-able. For Example:
      Strongly Defined Goal: Take a helicopter ride through the Grand Canyon by Dec 31, 2016.
      Weakly Defined Goal: Go to the Grand Canyon
   2. Create Action Items for that Goal
      Ask yourself: What are the things that I need to do to make this goal happen? List these smaller tasks out for yourself.
4. Select one action item for one goal and do it; start now!
   Are there any areas that are important to you that you can start on right away? Sometimes it is great to find items that are easy to complete and can get your motivation up!
5. Schedule your other action items into your calendar and fit them in!

Important: For every action item for a goal or entire goal that you achieve, stop for a moment to breathe in and celebrate your achievement and hard work! Then prepare yourself to move on to your next action item until you have achieved that goal!

Keep your bucket list handy and once you have completed one goal, select the next most important goal and repeat the process.

What to do when your fear and self-doubt starts chattering to your head?

Remember: You can do this.

You are just as worthy of happiness as anyone else.

You have a unique combination of skills, strengths and potential and the universe needs you to share those beautiful, special gifts that you have to offer.

We may stumble from time to time as we work towards our goals and that is ok; please continue to take tiny steps forward.

I believe that everyone in this world deserves the opportunity to be happy – so please make the space for yourself to do that. The truth is that the only person who can truly make you happy is you…no one else is going to do that for you.

Need help?

If you need some help fine-tuning your plan or goals and staying motivated as you work towards the, please contact me to schedule you in. We can chat about where you are currently, where you want to be and discuss how I could assist you to get there.

Let’s do this!