Ah yes – it’s the end of the year and we not only have the frenzy(!) of festivities to deal with, but we are all seemingly inundated with stuff about ‘Goal Setting’, and making next year our ‘best year ever’ and so on and so forth. Year end reflections.
And really, some of us like setting goals and planning and plenty of us don’t.
Whilst I was writing this post, I decided this will be the first of three (or maybe four) posts which will highlight the different things I do based upon my year end reflections. They help me with goals and planning and progress and accountability. I want to highlight how I involve others, and I will showcase the different, and unique, activities run by two good friends. When we work for ourselves, we particularly need to create our support networks. It can be a lonely and frustrating journey otherwise.
I Like Goal Setting
Anyway, I do like goal setting. It seems to work well for me.
You might already know that I really love the “12 Week year” book by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington.
In fact I love it so much that I set up a Trello board to manage my 12 Week Year activities on an ongoing basis. I even put together some simple videos to demonstrate how I use my Trello board.They are on YouTube, still free but one of my goals for next year is to turn all that into a paid product. Sign up for them here. Trello Examples
I digress!
I Use These Books & WorkbooksTo Help With Goal Setting
Alongside other year planning and review ‘systems’ that I have tried, I come back to the 12 Week Year time and time again. As a complete contrast in the past couple of years, I have also used the ‘My Shining Year’ ‘Biz’ workbooks from Leonie Dawson. They are bright and cheerful and encourage one to get out the coloured pens and write and doodle and draw whilst answering questions and thinking about what has happened in our business and where we want to go next. There is also one for ‘Life’ but I don’t use that.
I share this info from the point of view of someone who likes planning and who has tried quite a few ‘things’ available on-line to help us. I also know plenty of people who really hate all that planning stuff, they resist it, they can’t get started, they think it’s all too corporate and constrained. It doesn’t have to be, so I hope I can show that over these next couple of blog posts.
Vision Boards… More Stuff To Stress Over?
Vision boards are frequently touted as the miracle start to understanding our goals and why we are doing what we are doing. BUT I am sure I am not the only one who looks at them and thinks that they are another place in our lives where we seem to celebrate consumption, of making a list of stuff that we want. Buying stuff and having loads of stuff in our lives doesn’t make us happy. And it makes a lot of people broke, under financial stress from trying to keep up and express their life and lifestyle in terms of things you can buy from a shop.
Related: Why Podcasting Is The New Networking
How Do I Want To FEEL?
There is a different way of expressing where we want to go and develop our business and enhance our lives.
Talk about feelings instead of how much stuff we want. How do we want to feel… not what we feel we want!
Soulful Sunflower Reflections
Last week I had an enjoyable escape from the office. I also made a great start on working out some feelings I had about 2017 and some feelings I want to have for 2018.
I went to Soulful Sunflower Reflections, a lovely workshop created and hosted by Lynnda Worsnop. It had feelings as the central theme rather than acquiring stuff, and had the sunflower as the central theme and mechanism for us to explore and express those feelings. Lynnda gave us a nicely put together workbook, which we started using.
Time To Get Crafty Too!
The sunflower focus works beautifully well for this workshop. It wasn’t all thinking about feelings however…. we got crafty too! A major element of our day was spent making our own sunflower, whilst learning some new skills in using inks and paper, and colour and glue.
We used our words that we had identified in a couple of exercises and included them within our works of art. I also decided to write some empowering words on the petals related to growth. Writing and having some visual reminder of words also engages other senses and modes of learning to reinforce things. Our words will make more impact upon ourselves. So much more satisfying and useful than creating a board full of stuff we feel under pressure to buy to demonstrate our vision and success!
I had to leave early, but finished my sunflower off at home, and I decided to write over my words with some pearly metallic pens. When the light catches my sunflower, the words glow and are highlighted. When there is no direct light they are part of the design but not ‘leaping out at me. I love that about what I created.
I have kept popping back into my workbook over the last few days and I have created a good foundation to help me focus on what I want to feel as well as achieve in 2018.