What Would You Do If…?
What would your life look like in ten years if you had all the time and money at your disposal? During my last post, I wrote about why I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, and you can read about it here. I promised to write about what I do instead of resolutions which is writing a vision for my future. So how do you go about doing this yourself?
First, get out some paper, a notebook, a computer, or whatever apparatus you’d like to use to document your future self. You need take about 15 minutes or so to answer the first question I asked. What your life look like in ten years if you had all the time and money you needed right now? Write this out as if it has already happened. Think about as many aspects of your life as you can. What kind of house do you live in and how is it decorated? What kind of car do you drive? What job do you have, and how much do you make? What kind of relationship do you have with your significant other? Your kids? How do you feel physically and mentally? How are your finances? Are you saving for retirement and vacations? Do you have all of your debt paid off? What kind of person are without all of the stress in your life from time and money? Think big. I mean, really big. Do it. Right now. Set this aside and write it all out. Come back when you’re done.
Dream Brainstorm
Welcome back! Now that you have a vision for your future, it’s time to make a dream brainstorm. Take a look at all of the things you’ve written down and turn them into a list of dreams. You may find that as you get going, additional dreams pop up. For example, once I started writing my dreams down, I also started adding more things about myself that I hadn’t thought of before such as I work my tail off to achieve my goals and understand that my goals come before my wants.
Once I really got going on my brainstorm, I started thinking about the kind of person I would have to become in order to achieve those dreams. Obviously, I wasn’t doing this because I haven’t achieved these dreams yet. While I am a go-getter, I will readily admit that I put wants before dreams, especially those dreams that make me uncomfortable to achieve. Fred DeVito once said, “If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.” I’m a smart gal. If I’d been willing to do the hard stuff, I would have achieved my dreams years ago instead of just thinking about them. When I did this activity, I came up with 30 dreams. I stopped there because I ran out of space on my paper. Go to town. Write down your dreams and come back again.
Create Ten Dreams
It’s time to narrow down your brainstorm into the most important dreams. Create ten dreams. Rachel Hollis calls them ten dreams. Chalene Johnson calls them ten goals. Whatever you want to call them is totally up to you, but they are your future. Write them as if you have already achieved them. As you do this, you might find that you combine some of your dreams into one statement. My example:
Brainstorm
- I am a business owner.
- I am a health coach.
- I am a holistic nutritionist.
One of My Ten Dreams
I am a holistic nutritionist, personal trainer, and health coach who owns her own business.
Choose One Dream to Turn Into a Goal Now
Choose one of these dreams to turn into a goal now with a timeframe. This goal may also help you achieve other goals. The one above is my current, 90-day goal. I don’t think I’ll be done in 90 days with all of it, but I’m know I will make significant headway. I do plan, however, on having this all accomplished by May 1, 2020. That’s five months from now. I have made it very specific. It’s also measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Will it be hard? Absolutely. I work a full-time job teaching at a high school and a part-time job working as a personal trainer. However, I told myself that I work my tail off to achieve my goals and understand that my goals come before my wants. This goal has to be my first choice because I want to get out of teaching and move to health and wellness which means obtaining certifications before I can do that. Your turn. Figure out which goal you are going to start with.
What’s Next?
One you have your goal figured out, you need to reverse engineer it. In education, we call it backwards design. In the next post, I’ll talk about what backwards design is and how you can break down your big goal into smaller, achievable steps.
