3 things I’m doing differently with my goals this year

This year I decided to be a bit more intentional about my word of the year. My monthly goals night is already a solid habit in my life and if I incorporate the word of the year business into that process, it should make the whole thing seamless and easy.

In terms of goals themselves, I have three main areas I’m focussing on this year:

1. God
2. Relationships – Dion and kids, extended family and friends, and me
3. Health and fitness

Here’s what I’m doing differently this year:

1. Adding an additional goals category for my word of the year

This year, when I set goals, I’m thinking about them in 4 parts – the three areas above, and joy as a fourth category.

Isn’t that a great idea? 🙂

I no longer want to have busy goals but meaningful goals and the ones that are habits are now off the list.

This month, I consciously set goals in each of those categories and in the joy category asking my 5 questions:

• how can I bring joy?
• what will bring me joy?
• where do I need to choose joy?
• does this spark joy? and
• what can I do to eliminate things that steal joy?

2. Align books to read to goals

The other day I came across Valerie’s post on her blog and I see she links the books she’s going to read to her goals.

What a great idea for non-fiction.

Last year my non-fiction/ fiction ratio was 20:50. I don’t intend to do this fully because I really like space for spontaneity, especially with reading. Still… I do think it’s a good idea for at least some non-fiction books to be aligned to my goals.

3. Write out my goals by hand

I’ve long since said, especially when I ran the workshops, that there’s something special that happens when you write down your goals.

(Anything is better than not even getting them down, but writing is better than typing)

There’s a connection in your brain and it’s as if you’re committing even more to the process.

Also, if you tend towards crazy like I do, you’ll quickly realise that having 30-odd goals a month is a bit much. But in my defence, you don’t feel it when you’re typing….

My new diary has only 12 lines on each month’s goals page which is possibly a sign that I should slow down and enjoy the process more.

So I wrote out my goals on those 12 lines this month and I like it already.

There you go – the three things I’m doing differently this year with my goals.

Are you doing anything different with your goals this year?