New Beginnings are great. The slate is clean; the options are numerous; and anything is possible. Whether it’s the New Year, a new month, a new week, or just a moment when you decide it’s time to begin again, here are three things you can do to make progress on your intentions:
RESET
Leave the baggage behind. RESET your goals and your task lists. Sure, last year’s goal of flying to the moon (replace with your goal) may still be your desire for this next year, but make it a new goal. It’s just like the trip counter in your car. Push it and set it to zero.
Start your journey to your dreams anew. Think about what you want to accomplish, build, or create. Learn from what hasn’t worked, but leave the regrets, the self-blame, the recriminations behind. They won’t help you move forward. They won’t motivate you. They won’t encourage you, so why pack them?
Pull out and examine everything. Re-evaluate your goals, your to-dos, and even your someday maybes. If they’re important but not goal related, figure out when you’ll be ready to take them on. If they’re not important, toss them! Take them off your to-do lists and let go of the expectation (or must do thinking).
Of course, ‘pull out and examine everything’ was figurative. But if your goal is cleaning out the closet, constructing an inviting space to create, or taking up where you left off on your project, then you will literally pull out and examine everything. Put back only what moves you forward on your dream journey.
REVIEW
Set a schedule to REVIEW your goals and the tasks you’ve determined will get you where you want to go. If you set a goal and only look at it at the end of the year, you’re not likely to have taken the steps you needed to reach it.
You could go for quarterly reviews. You could choose a monthly review schedule. Maybe a weekly review. Or look at your goal and the steps to get there each day. More often is better, however any way you can fit it in to your routine is good start.
Part of the review process is working your goals into what life has currently thrown your way. I don’t know about you, but the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year never survive contact with reality without some modification of timelines, actions steps, or clarification of what success looks like. After all, I don’t know what lies on the other side of the hill that I’m climbing until I get there.
REMIND
So, you’ve decided on your REVIEW schedule. How will you remember to do it?
Add it to your calendar?
Set reminder notifications in your electronic calendar?
Set an alarm on your phone?
Ask Alexa or Siri to remind you?
Send an email to yourself and schedule it?
Go ahead and set that first REMINDer. I'll wait here.
Now that you’ve set the alarms and notifications that will REMIND you, what’s your policy on rescheduling it? At some point and time, something will come up that will push your REVIEW aside. Don’t just delete the event or ignore the reminder. Move it to the next available time slot and reset the REMINDers. It’s too easy to let time slip away and take your action items and vision with it.
Here are some additional Resources:
Goals:
How To schedule emails to send at a later date:
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