If your email inbox or WhatsApp group messages are like mine this beginning of 2019, you’ve seen a number of messages that have advice about making new year’s resolutions or not making new year’s resolutions or one I got this morning that said, “Avoid Resolutions!” And then it went on to say something about just start doing what you want to do.
Everyone has a different take on actualizing goals or moving forward with life, family, career, spiritual and other pursuits and projects. Some people research a lot, examine their core feelings and analyze different courses of action. Some people like to jump in and try a few things they’re interested in and then decide what works best for them.
For the last few years, I’ve been trying to do something I learned a few years back and have found invaluable. I share it here in the hopes that it will be helpful to you, dear reader, and I have included an interview with the person who showed it to me in the first place as well!
Celebrate Past Victories and Create New Dreams
The process starts with my taking stock by spending some time at the end of the previous year (or early part of the new year if you are just reading this now!) and assessing my victories of sorts and then writing them down. Then I take some time, after having reflected on those, to project outwards to what do I want to see myself doing (or trying to accomplish,) in this coming year. I try to think about all the different areas of my life pie: relationships, family, career, personal hobbies, new skills, cultural, religious/spiritual, health, etc.
For going forward, I may make a lot of goals, and later in the year realize, “hey, there’s only so much time!” And that’s okay. From knowing what worked for you last year, and what made you most “happy,” sometimes you can see what you’d like to do next and in which area, you’d like to have further growth.
Read on for an interview with Rebecca Flansburg, Mompreneur, Author, and Accountability Coach, who uses and teaches this system personally and while working with clients on their various writing, business and personal goals. For more about Rebecca, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaflansburg/
Q&A with an Accountability Coach
AM: What is the practice of setting out your victories and goals?
RF: The thing about goal setting is that it is a three-step process. Step One is identifying and writing down what you want to achieve in the coming months and year. Step Two is looking at the goal(s) and breaking them down even further. For example, if you want to write and publish a book, you need to decide how many chapters, is it a kids’ book or an adult book, are you going to need to take some classes? If so, where and when are those classes?
Drill down each step of the goal until you have a roadmap of sorts of what needs to be done to make this all happen. Step Three is the one that trips people up: Implement. Goals are just pretty dreams on paper until you take action and work them like a project.
AM: Why do you do this? How has it been most effective for you and for clients? What do you see helps you to reflect-back and “vision forward?” How have you seen this work best for you?
RF: I am a very list-orientated person. I love writing things down, reviewing them often and crossing them off when done. Bullet Journaling has been an easy and inexpensive way to set goals and keep me on task. I read somewhere that successful people review their goals once a month, but very successful folks review their goals once a DAY.
AM: What thoughts would you like to share with our Joyfestival Industries readers taking the time to do this to help manifest their good dreams and goals in the world (and revel in owning the good they already did in the past year too!)?
RF: To be successful in setting goals and “working them like a project,” it needs to be beyond important to you. You need to be hungry for change and making your dreams come true. That “hunger” is what will keep you going when things get frustrating, you feel like you don’t have the time you need or when life throws you a curve ball. Remember to work your goals, you just need to make forward movement in regards to them. Even if it feels like you are moving in millimeters, it’s still progress.
AM: Any additional goal or joyful-life-dream-manifesting tips or ideas to share?
RF: Know what I call your “End Game.” Ultimately, what do you want to achieve and why. Never lose sight of that. It will be like your lighthouse when life gets stormy.
Thanks so much to Rebecca Flansburg (RF,) for sharing all that useful information with our readers! For more information on Victories and Goal Setting or on Vision Boarding and Envisioning Your Best Life workshops, check out THIS page.
My Goal-Setting Process
I’ve personally also found it helpful once I’ve listed all of my victories for the past year and then looked out towards the new year 2019, to then try to categorize some of these goals into different themes in my Word document, so it’s easier to make sense of them when I look at it daily. It’s also useful when breaking down those goals (the “what’s,”) to jot down (if you have ideas at the time, or just leave some space to keep adding to the document later,) any “why’s and how’s” about how you’ll get to WHAT your goals are.
If you see all the victories, large and small you wrote down that you accomplished in the different areas of your life in the past year, you’ll hopefully lovingly remember that it took a lot of why’s and how’s to get each of those things done too! Looking forward to hearing people’s shared successes.
We’d relish hearing from you to let us know what works best for you when thinking about what victories you had in the last year and how you want to cast forward to working on new goals this year. Feel free to be in touch at [email protected] and let us know your thoughts!
P.S. Can’t resist the urge as a librarian to do a shout out for exploring all the wonderful books, resources, e-resources and classes (real and virtual,) offered at your local library that might help you “capture and realize” more of this information for yourself in ways that work for good in your own life. 😊