My 2017 Goals

I’m gonna be real with you, few things excite me more than goal setting. I am a total geek when it comes to making plans and tackling things. I’m the type of girl that has a to-do list for my to-do list, so when the New Year rolls around you know I’m gonna be digging in deep to some goal setting!

Over the past 5 years I have heard countless people speak highly of the Lara Casey PowerSheets, so I was thrilled to get my hands on a set this year. This goal-setting book is designed to help you identify and achieve goals. There are several pages of prep in the beginning, leading you up to laying out goals and a plan of attack.

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After taking 2 weeks to slowly work through the prep I was mind blown. If I can give any word of advice to Powersheet users it would be this: trust the process! At the beginning I had a few ideas of goals, but nothing I felt totally sure of. Throughout the process I went back and forth from thinking I knew what my goals would be, to having no idea. But, by the time the prep was over all my thoughts and feelings were tied up in pretty bows with clear and specific goals. I had created goals that I felt certain of and confident in, with deep reasoning behind them, along with clear next steps!

One awesome thing about Powersheets is that every 3 months there is a “goal refresh”. This allows you to re-evaluate and adjust goals because things change! What might be your goal at the beginning of the year may not be in a few months! Knowing I had the option to change and grow along the way took a ton of stress off the process!

 

I wasn’t originally planning on blogging my own goals because, quite frankly, I find it intimidating. I have followed Nancy Ray for a little over a year and she blogs her goals monthly. I’ve heard her say that she would never accomplish her goals if she didn’t blog them, and I love reading them! It inspires me each month, and I love reading about her accomplishments. Because of this, the idea to blog my own goals was planted. This week my sweet friend Kat gave me the final push I needed, so here I am, blogging my goals!

 

My word of the year!

I’ve never been one for a word of the year, because I think so much can change in 12 months. I like practical action steps and a plan, not simply a word. However, part of Powersheets is selecting a word and I was committed to sticking to the process. Going through each worksheet, there was a word that was clear. Important. Important. Important. My word was obvious, so I decided to go with it and am already so happy I did!

 

The biggest goal I have for 2017 : To choose important not just urgent.

I watched myself choose “urgent” over “important” time and time again in 2016. I do this in my life and my business. My desire is not to say no to the urgent to-do list items, just to prioritizing things in a way that is smart. Rather than always being caught in what Sean Covey calls “the whirlwind” and only working on things that are urgent, I want to make wise decisions on how I spend my time so that I can give my best to my life and my business. As far as important goes, there are things like working out, resting, keeping up with bookkeeping, monitoring the effectiveness of my marketing, and spending time with loved ones (etc.) that I ignore because (though they may be important) they are not “urgent”. Make sense? My desire is to become aware of the way I spend my time and evaluate if I am using it wisely. The Powersheets say over and over “will this get me closer to where I want to be when I’m 80?” and that is the question I want to ask.

 

So throughout my Powersheets I was able to identify several different areas this will (hopefully) play out and outline more specific goals. These are too lengthy to share all them here, but I thought I would go Nancy Ray- style and share a few that I am looking forward to taking on.

 

• Take the Nancy Ray contentment challenge for the first 3 months of the year (blog post on this coming Monday!)
• Leave my phone in my purse more often when spending time with loved ones
• Allow for enough time to not rush out the door when leaving my house
• Arrive places on time
• Turn off background noise while working/driving/relaxing
• Have social media free weekends at least once a month
• Do a load of laundry once a week rather than waiting till I have 4 loads worth
• Make an effort to straighten up my office at the end of each work day so I come in to a clean workspace every day
• Read more classic literature (I also have a book list for 2017, is this something you would want to know more about? Comment and let me know)
• Watch more historical documentaries and less *insert substance-less guilty pleasure netflix show here*
• Find a type of exercise that I enjoy and create a routine for it
• And the goal we’ve all been waiting for…get back into the swing of blogging! I miss it!

 

It feels scary writing them out for you to read! I can already tell having them on my blog will motivate me to stick to them (I’m a little stubborn like that…), so maybe this is a good first step.

I thought I would also go ahead and share my goals for January, and hopefully check in each month.

In each month of Powersheets there is a page called the “Tending List” which organizes your goals by monthly, weekly, and daily. In the spirit of full disclosure, I filled out my January page in the last week of December and by about Jan 5 was already feeling overwhelmed. I had definitely added too many things to each category! I ended up thinking it over for a few days and re-writing a new “Trending List” that is waaaay more attainable! Since refocusing and paring down my list I have already felt encouraged and seen progress. I’m thankful for the reminder from my sister Allie to “not let perfect be the enemy of good” and take it little by little.

So onto my January goals!

 

• Lay out my guidelines for the Contentment Challenge

• Begin and stick to the challenge
• Clean out my closet
• Have 1 social media free weekend
• Blog about my goals (check!)
• Re-read “The Celebration Of Discipline” (One of my favorite books.
• Read “Grace Not Perfection” (loving!!)
• Visit the gym once per week (starting small guys…)
• Do one load of laundry per week
• Do one thing alone per week (I’m realizing my introverted self needs a good stroll through the bookstore or stop at a coffee shop alone to clear my head)
• Stick to social media hours (more details in my contentment challenge guidelines coming Monday)

Alright. Now it’s time to get started. If you read to the end of this lengthy post, you should win a prize. I would love to know what you’re goals for the year or month are and what you plan to accomplish them is. Comment and let me know.