Sheri here –
Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were all you wanted them to be and filled with love and joy.
At the risk of being one more email on the topic of your vision and goals for the year…if you haven’t reflect on your wins and challenges for last year, now would be a good time to do that. Acknowledge and celebrate all your wins. Look at the challenges and think about what you learned. Close out last year and then you are free to focus on the New Year!
New Year’s Resolution – Not!
I don’t know about you, but I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions because they don’t work for me! See my blog Resolutions – Not! Make Goals Instead!
What works best for me is to create a vision and then set quarterly goals to work toward that picture of my future – with that I truly can see for miles and miles!
Why create a vision or update it?
A vision lets you picture your future and align with both your dreams and your core values.
You might ask: “What is the difference between a vision and a goal?” A goal is a milestone created to achieve your vision. A vision is a dream with goals to make it real. Goals create a foundation for your dreams to make them real with concrete action.
Quarterly Goal Setting
Setting quarterly goals gives you time to work on your goals with a focus – Follow One Course Until Successful. At the end of the quarter, I review my progress toward my overall direction and then update my goals for another quarter. Breaking them down into bite size pieces.
If you are uncertain how to craft solid, SMARTER goals – go to Making Change – SMARTER Goals for an explanation and guidance.
Celebrate
OK, maybe setting goals isn’t your jam – try making it a game – many people are inspired by “winning” a game – others are not. Whether you are gamifying goals or not, rewarding and celebrating the completion of major milestones is important. Making the celebration part of the goal gives you something additional to work toward.
Set the celebration to be consistent with the challenge of the accomplishment.
For example:
- Losing weight to the point where clothes don’t fit – give away the old clothes to someone who can use them – and buy a new outfit. By giving away the old clothes you aren’t inclined to save them for “just in case” and the new outfit is a tangible reward of your progress.
- Declutter your garage to where you can easily park your car inside – take yourself out to a dinner at your favorite restaurant. If it was a gnarly garage declutter, maybe a road trip for a couple of days is more appropriate and then come home and park inside the clean garage! Now that’s a real celebration – the car in a clean garage!
Setting up the goal with the celebration, gives you that added incentive to be do what you say you are going to do.
Finishing a quarterly project, whether or not any one else acknowledges the accomplishment, you get to do it – not only for yourself, but for those who helped you do it. If you finish your desired accomplishment mid-quarter, do the celebration then – it’s important to be close to the successful completion. Yes, the completion of the goal is it’s own reward, but we deserve to celebrate our successes, we do far too little of it.
What about you?
Did you update your vision and set your goals and intentions for this year? It’s not too late to do that. Hit reply and let me know.
If you didn’t and you need some help, I put together a Vibrant Vision Guide and Journal you can get here. It includes a meditation and a guidebook with journal and planner to help you visualize your dreams and go about achieve them. Just go here.
OK…I’ve sent you exploring all over – blogs and visions guides, just a warmup for this year!!
To your wealth and health in 2023!
Ciao,
Sheri
