Is there anything you want to accomplish with your life? With this year? With this week? Today? This minute?
Then stop what you're doing. Go on. Take your eyes off the computer screen and get a notebook out.
Done that? Now write down what you want to do with your time. Write down, in detail, a specific goal you want to accomplish. Finished yet? Then give yourself a time limit to accomplish that goal.
Having a day and time that you have to achieve that goal makes it suddenly much scarier, doesn't it? I've found both in my writing and in real life planning, everything becomes more real if you write it down and plan it out. And real is a heck of a lot more terrifying than fantasy.
But real is what you live. Real is possible. Fantasy is just a hazy wish you dream about before you go to sleep at night. If you ever want your life to become that dream, you're going to have to make it real.
Is that enough, however? Can you just give yourself a general goal and a deadline and voila, you're a success? Of course not!
You're going to have to plan. A lot.
Take that general goal and break it down into many, smaller goals. Once you've finished that, give yourself a mini-deadline for each of your small goals. Be conservative; it's better to have too much time allotted than not enough in this exercise.
Now look at your coming schedule. What time do you have available for this activity? How can you fit your goal pursuits into your daily life? Obviously you're going to have to give up something to make your goal happen. Because if you didn't have your time wasted on something else, you'd already have accomplished the goal by now.
So do an honest evaluation of your life. Is there something you could cut back on, just a bit, to fit your new activities in? Is there anything you can cut completely?
Write down any decisions you make about your decisions here, too. The human brain is a funny thing. Writing your goals and decisions down on paper has shown to make people more susceptible to implementing those changes.
Having said that, I don't want any of you to mistake my meaning. Once you write it down, you're still going to have to do it. You have to get up and walk away from the pen and paper and actually accomplish something if you want to succeed at your goals. But writing them down is an excellent strategy at changing the way you think about those changes. It takes something that seems like a fantasy and brings it into reality.
And no one knows how incredibly hard that is to do better than a writer.
Daily Stats:
- Exercised, stretched, meditated, and worked on my writing twice today.
- Wrote in my journal, stayed on budget, and wrote a poem today.
- Posted on my blog.
- Made my bed.
- Stayed on diet (improved my vegetable and fruit eating!).
- Cooked breakfast, fixed my lunch, and fixed myself dinner.
I read on the Change Blog (a wonderfully informative blog for anyone who wants to change) that you should create a goal book outlining your plans to change. I nodded my head in agreement when I read it and used the notebook I had already been using to outline my goals, naming it my goal book.
And that was that. Or so I thought.
But the thought remained in my head. When I went to work, I continuously looked around for things that might help me on my goal, with no specific thoughts in mind. I just looked, thinking how each thing could be used to develop my goals and whether the benefits could offset the price.
And then I saw a zipper binder on sale for $3.50.
I immediately flashed back to my 8-year-old self. I used to carry around a zipper binder my mom bought me for school, dreaming about filling it with wondrous information that would make my dreams come true. I'd show it to other people and awe them with my incredible abilities. And I'd become something special, all from the power of that beautiful zipper binder.
Of course, that never happened. But it was a dream of mine, and since this new change is all about making my childhood dreams come true, I decided to use the money I had budgeted for my goal plans on a Goal Book.
As soon as I finished preparing the notebook, I felt like a giddy child again with my school binder. This notebook was going to make my dreams come true.
Which is childish nonsense, of course. I will make my dreams come true. But this binder and all it contains will help me get there. And that is certainly something to be excited about.
A Goal Book is a notebook where you plan your goals to a close degree and keep active track of your progress. Those that use such tools have been shown to stay on track towards their goals more often, bounce back from setbacks easier, and accomplish more overall. People who want to lose weight are encouraged to keep a notebook keeping track of their meal habits and their exercise regimen. Those who wish to get organized are encouraged to create lists of what they want to accomplish.
It's all related. So my Goal Book is here to help me stay on track towards my goals and I can honestly say it's already helping. In fact, it's amazing.
Do you like the idea of a Goal Book? Maybe you should make one for yourself. Who knows. Maybe it'll help you make your dreams come true.
Daily Stats:
- Exercised, stretched, meditated, and worked on writing twice today.
- Wrote in my journal, stayed on budget, and wrote a poem today.
- Posted on my blog.
- Made my bed, picked up in my room, did some dishes, and did laundry today.
I've lived in a messy house my whole life. Not dirty, but definitely messy. Organization has never been a thing I, or my mother, have been good at. She continuously tried to teach me to be organized and clean more my entire life, but none of it seemed to stick. I dreaded cleaning, hated organizing, and didn't want anything to do with any of it.
Turns out, she was right.
Organization is key towards success. You can't succeed without getting your life and world a little organized. There is such a thing as being overly organized, but judging by my past, I think it'll be a long time before I reach such a point. Right now, I'm just trying to get a little bit.
So, towards that goal, I cleaned my room. Really well. And I've kept it that way. For almost 2 months. You have no idea how incredible an accomplishment that is for me. Until now, I think the longest period of time that my room has stayed this clean is maybe a week. And that usually meant someone else was either cleaning it or making me clean it.
I've also made a lot of cleaning projects a major priority in my life. Despite the fact I hate doing them.
How organized are you? Do you keep your environment organized, or does someone help (or even do it for you)? What methods of organization have you found to work?
I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone has. This is one subject I know very little about.
Daily Stats:
- Did not exercise or stretch, but meditated and worked on writing twice today.
- Wrote in my journal, mostly stayed on budget ($7 over on credit card payment), and wrote a poem.
- Posted on blog.
- Made my bed and picked up around room.
