Goals
The other day I was having lunch with my niece and we were chatting about summer plans. I asked her what goals she has for her summer. The response I got was silence. After a little bit, she responded that she initially thought she was going to be living with her boyfriend and working for most of it, but that was no longer happening, so she wasn’t sure. Sadly, a couple weeks ago she and her boyfriend decided to break up. I can see how that can throw off her plans initially, but I couldn’t understand why she didn’t have new plans to celebrate her last summer before her final semester of college. After all, she would soon need to get an “adult” job and start working full time. This baffled me.
Maybe it’s just me, but I set goals all the time. I have professional goals, I have personal goals, and I have goals for my relationship. When I have a day off, my goals include house projects I need to do, work projects that I need to spend time on, plus goals on how I want to spend my quality time with Mike. Some of my goals are long term in nature, such as building my coaching practice or going to Burning Man.
I find having a goal gives me focus. Reaching my goals increases my self-confidence and improves my self-worth. When I don’t meet my goal entirely, I have learned to be compassionate with myself. Goals also help me with my time management and organization. Let me give you an example.
Just the other day, I only had 3 hours left in my day before we were meeting some friends, but I had 4 very important things I needed to get done. I needed to clean up my office/change room (I have a closet full of costumes that regularly gets trashed), make a dinner salad, clean the bathrooms and write a blog. Nothing too difficult, all just time consuming.
Since I was already in my office to clean up my play clothes, I decided to start there. I really needed to focus on my desk and getting it ready for my new work computer but really wanted to try on some outfits for Burning Man. At that time, I decided I would give myself a full hour down there as it really needed the help. Setting the timer on my phone for 30 minutes, I started cleaning off my desk which had recently become my catch all for everything. I told myself, I would put things away as I was moving them and not just moving them from one place to another. I chose 30 minutes, as I felt when my timer went off, I could reassess my progress and see if I needed to change my plans about trying on Burning Man outfits. I am happy to say, I didn’t need the full 30 minutes to clean off and put away stuff from my desk. Trying on the couple outfits only took a couple minutes, so I was out of the office in about 45 minutes. Score!
Writing my blog was the next most important thing to me, so that is what I focused on next. Again, I set the alarm on my phone, this time for an hour and sat down with my computer. I lost a little bit of time scrolling through emails and tiktok, but didn’t get too frustrated with myself for getting off course. I gave myself some grace and then started typing. When my alarm went off, I finished up my thoughts and moved onto my next project.
I didn’t realize I needed to wash and spin the kale and lettuce for the salad I was making, so I was very happy I had a few leftover minutes from my office clean up as that definitely took more time than I was expecting.
My last goal was cleaning the bathroom. I was able to do a little bit of it, but didn’t get to finish cleaning the bathroom before we had to leave to meet our friends.
Overall, I didn’t get everything done I wanted, but I was still very happy with my accomplishment and not being late for our engagement. In the past, I would have easily gotten lost in my office/change room clean-up, forgot something that I needed to do or been late for meeting up with our friends. All of which I find to be very frustrating.
Making lists definitely helps me remember all the goals I make. I have a list for my long term goals, for my weekly goals and for my goals that are a lesser priority. Setting goals and making lists keeps my production where I want it to be, but it also allows me more down time as I am not aimlessly wandering throughout my day, forgetting half the things I wanted to do.
Do you make goals? How do you like to keep track of them? Tell me about them! Give me some of the tips you use to stay focused on your goals. Drop me a line on social media or email me at Steph@KoruLifeCoaching.com
