build your beautiful self

It is the time of year again, where you beat yourself up for not accomplishing the things you set out to accomplish in the last 365 days. Some are a little more forgiving of themselves than others. Me personally, I hate setting resolutions and then not accomplishing them.

I don’t like goal setting either. Typically, us as humans, set our goals so high that they are almost unattainable!  For example “I’m going to lose 20lbs this year,” or “I am going to ask for a raise to make my wage X amount,” I am going to do these AMAZING things.”

Trust me, I have done all these things. I have set unattainable goals that are quantitative in nature. I have had the huge build up at the end of the year when the weather is cold, where I sit down and think about all the things I didn’t do in the last 365 days. I get sad that I didn’t stick to my guns and have discipline to lose weight, make X amount of money, do all these AMAZING things.

I have decided that this year will be slightly different. I am going to set up my goals in smaller increments. I am not going to set out my plan for the whole year. I am not going to get grandiose in my annual design. I have a lot of things in the works. Some will pan out, others will either work or fizzle out. I can’t focus on those things that are uncertain but I can put in the list the things that need to be done when they do work. This is my plan and design for this new year of getting shit done.

 

I made a list:
I put together a list of the things I am working on that will continue over from this year and what I am looking forward to in the upcoming months. I wrote out all the things I am working on and what needs to be worked on.

I grabbed the most important items off the list and made a sub-list:
I took the tasks that are essential to making the year flow. Baseline tasks. Operational items that need a system, and tasks that will require time, but have to be worked on consistently. This sub-list of items will be prioritized.

I am going to start with January:
I will be breaking out the items into monthly tasks. Things that will take a week, I will break down that as well. Now I have 1 month of things that need to be accomplished.

Then February, March, April and so on
The things that were completed in January will spill over into February. There will be additional items that need to be completed based on what was accomplished and what was learned in January. You will be a little wiser from the previous month, so utilize that in the next month.

There you have it. Simple easy way to not get overwhelmed in 2017 and not feel like a complete schmuck in December.

I am doing my annual planning this way because nothing I set out to do goes the way I plan it to. There are always zigs to my zags. Always ups when I should be going down, and there are so many new opportunities that come across my plate that fit into the current model of what I am doing.New lessons learned, new knowledge acquired.

Being your own boss and eventually the boss of others means you have to be dynamic and understanding. Change is good so things not going as planned could potentially be a great thing. On the flip side, Change could make you realize you are going down the wrong path and going through life one month at a time can allow course correction in real-time, not a year later.

Life is a work in progress. Write what you want in your life because writing it down helps you track it. Don’t be too critical and don’t chart yourself only on failures. While they are learning tools, too many gets hard to handle emotionally. Chart your successes also. You need to know what you are doing well at so you can do more of that also.

I think this year I will work on that myself. I don’t hold my successes in my memory. Usually it is just what I failed at. This gives me frustration and anger, so I need to focus on the good in it to overcome those feelings. Hey, no one is perfect.

I hope this helps you in your 2017 planning journey. If you want to plan with me, please reach out! I would love to have a buddy in this trial!

Happy 2017! See you soon!