In several conversations I’ve had lately; people have commented on my intentional living. I love how my husband and I are flexible with the opportunities of what we can do in life now and open to when unique projects come to us. Because of this flexibility, I sometimes don’t give enough credit to the structure that allows us all this freedom. We actively work on Goal-Setting and schedule Check-Ins for our goals.
On January 1, my husband and I were sitting in a hotel room talking about the future. What are our hopes and dreams? What do we want our lives to look like at key milestones? We have one big goal we’re working towards together that we plan to achieve in the next 7-9 years. If we were a company, that would be our Mission. And each year, we identify annual Goals (corporate speak: our Strategies) with Actions underneath each of them.
If you have created 2019 Goals; we’re halfway through the year. Dust off those goals and check in.
1 – Celebrate where you are! Which key milestones did you hit?
2 – Update your Strategies and Actions to ensure you hit your 2019 Goals. What’s working that you should do more of this year? What didn’t work that you should stop doing now? Are there any new Strategies or Actions that will get you to achieve your goals?
3 – Are there any new Goals that you want to add to focus on during the second half of the year?
Here’s a straightforward layout that I use for our Mission/Goals/Actions.
What’s your Mission? Your Mission is a Long Range Goal or something you want to achieve in the next 5/10/20 years. What do you want life to look like then (the more specific, the better)? Your Mission can be reaching particular levels of Work Life Blend, hitting monetary income or net worth levels.
What are your 2019 Goals? These should be strategies that will get you closer to your Mission. I have four buckets for my 2019 Goals: My Personal Goals, My Professional Goals, Our Joint (my husband and my) Personal Goals, Our Joint Professional Goals. Here are some of the type of goals:
– An Income Total
– A Net Worth Increase
– A Professional Lifestyle (around the kinds of projects we say yes to)
– A Personal Lifestyle (about what our Work-Life Blend looks like)
– Healthy Habits
– Developing New Skills
What are clear Actions you can take to hit those goals? Break down your goals with some milestones and actions. For our Income Goal, we divided the total by 6 with a milestone every two months. For our Net Worth Goal (which is linked to our income goal), we identified some significant actions of paying down debts, selling some assets, and reducing expenses. One of my health goals has a list of the 52 weeks in the year, so I can make a quick note of what I do each week. If you are working on creating new habits, I recommend using a tracker. I like the Best Self Habit Roadmap and you can use code BGSDSelf for a 15% discount.
Finally, embrace all the freedom that structure gives you! Be intentional in how you want to achieve your goals. It becomes real and achievable when you write it down and have a plan to get there.
Jenn Uhen (Pronounced Genuine) 