In the last post dedicated to Keeping it Fresh in 2022 we were thinking about thinking about your purpose and setting intentions for life. This time I want to talk about making it real, i.e. setting some goals and being ready for action – all with those intentions in mind!
It is helpful to use some questions or a model to help you sort out your goals. Try using the Stop Start Continue approach to help you.
With your values and intentions in mind ask yourself the following questions:
- Is there something you would like to start this year? E.g. a new hobby or sport..
- Is there something you would like to stop doing this year? E.g. spending so much time on the couch…
- Is there something you would like to continue doing this year? Would you like to do this more or less?
- Is there something outrageous or completely out there that you would like to try? Outrageous for one person might be normal for others – find your own thing and go for it.
When we applied this kind of thinking to our lives for 2022 we ended up with the following goals – (I use the word ‘goals’ loosely):
- We want to stop marking time and we want to start a new life in a new house.
- We want to be active – ideally taking regular walks on a beach somewhere for both our physical and mental health
- If we can sort out where we will be living then we hope to start some worthwhile work such as volunteer work and once more get stuck into blog writing.
These may not be SMART goals yet but it won’t take much to write those and then map out our path.
If you are not sure what SMART goals are they are goals that are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Time framed.
Once you have your goals you can plan your next steps in a measured way. But of course it is important not to lose sight of those intentions. Keeping your eyes fastened on the big picture will help you from straying too far. For us it means getting very busy in our house right now so we can sell it soon and focussing our attention on moving and finding somewhere else to live. Whilst it might be nice to take a little break and have a holiday away for a few days that will only slow us down. Even stopping for Christmas was a bad thing for us – we both hit a bit of a wall for a week or so after the holidays. The Omicron wave didn’t help either but you get the picture – we need to keep moving forward!
So keeping it fresh means keeping an eye on the big picture – your values, your intentions and purpose and letting these things guide your day to day decision making and actions. Life has its up and downs but if we can stay true to our values and our intentions we learn to weather the storms and stay focussed on our true purpose!
Happy planning in 2022. Let us know how you get on with it.
We will be sharing some of thoughts on finding your passion and staying productive too so look out for those posts soon.
We hope you will join us at Helpful by Nature by subscribing to our email list. We would love to hear from you, take your questions and provide answers if we are able.
Until next time,
Gillian (and Andrew)
