Last week’s post began outlining the approach Reka and I used to create our annual family goals. Here are the major takeaways:
- Reka and I have been developing and achieving doing goals together for almost 20 years and we firmly believe they work
- Our goals have shifted to a more balanced focus on what’s really important to us, our “True North”
We used some of our December holiday time to really dig in and focus on building our plan. We chose to call this time “Our Annual”. In reality, we started this process about 10 days before leaving on our trip.
I believe it’s easy to get caught in the day-to-day of life by continuing to take a step forward, then another, which has great value in getting to where you’re going, yet we often see how rarely people take the time to stop and see just how far they’ve come. It’s easy to get caught up in the race, yearning to see around the next corner…but, I feel it’s just as important to stop, take a breath, and review just your progress and how far you’ve come. What worked? What didn’t? What turned out to be easier than expected? What turned out to be a train wreck?
In short, be grateful for the journey, embrace the victories, and learn from the past. What can we do better this time?
To embrace this idea, I printed out the last 10 years of goals that Reka and I had outlined together. These pages ranged from a variety of typed formats to handwritten with a wide variety of approaches and details. As I mentioned in the previous blog, we began to embrace r the true value in documenting simple, clear, and sometimes big, crazy goals. Something magical seems to happen when they are written down.
About a week before our trip, we went to dinner to prepare for our adventure. I’d brought along the 10 years of outlined dreams/goals and we reviewed them, which turned out to be a fantastic exercise. At times, we laughed and wondered what the heck we were thinking. Other times, we couldn’t believe the small and narrow-minded nature of our thoughts. Overall, we were both amazed at how much had come to fruition. It gave us time to celebrate and remember the value of the process.
I believe this simple exercise helped us to remember what life was like when we had initially set those goals. In many cases, saying to our future selves “when this happens, just think how great life will be.” Well, it happened. And, yes life was great, but we didn’t stop to celebrate or even breath; we had just kept chugging along. This left a big impact, as it helped remind us of three things:
- We were incredibly fortunate to be living the lives we were living
- We could achieve anything we wanted; our limiting factors were our own thinking
- Using the practice of creating goals had as much, if not more, value in helping finding balance in life
I firmly believe these three things can apply to your life as well.
If you’re considering creating family goals, I would highly recommend taking some time to review the past. Think about what worked, what didn’t, and why. Embrace the victories and let your subconscious dig in to define what’s truly important.
Next week, I’ll discuss a tool we modified to help us find our True North and our version of life balance.
Do you need help taking a breath and acknowledging your victories? What about setting your goals? That’s what we’re here for–here to help, no expectation or obligation. Reach out anytime!
