Goals

I had the coolest experience two nights ago as hubby and I sat in the heat of the night, with no electricity, and shared our goals with each other. The odd thing about this experience was that I am sure we have done something of this nature before, but the difference with this one, was that I wrote down everything that came to mind (his and mine).

The heat was short-lived (thank God) and to some extent, so was the conversation but it is amazing what a 1/2 hour conversation that is free of distractions can produce. Some of the goals that were shared was a surprise to both of us and that was exciting...learning a bit more of each other. The other good part of this process was that although some of the goals, well lets be real, most of my goals were far-fetched and really "out there"...there was no negativity, it was a very supportive atmosphere.

We will continue the discussion in the next couple days, expanding from personal goals to couple goals, an exercise that we have done together before but once again, I do not recall recording our objectives.

You may be wondering (or not) what prompted this conversation; it was based on my reading of the Platform book that I mentioned here. Once again, upon reading another chapter, I found new meat to chew on...something to say "hmmm".  Being the application kinda gal that I am, I immediately wanted to jump in and actually do what was being talked about/suggested.

What about you...do you have your goals written someplace? or are you like how I was, and they are just swimming around in your head? As long as I can remember, I always knew that there was some importance to writing down your goals but for whatever reason I guess I just never did it. In the book, five reasons are provided as support for why one should write down your goals:

• because it will force you to clarify what you want
• because it will motivate you to take action
• because it will provide a filter for other opportunities
• because it will help you overcome resistance
• because it will enable you to see and celebrate your progress.

Note: you can read a bit more about each of these on his blog here or buy the book!

With this in mind, if you do not have your goals written down, I think you have five very good reasons to do so. While I do not have a story (yet) about how I wrote out a goal and it was achieved (at least I don't think so...), what I can say is that the minute I began writing down the goals, my next step was to add detail. It was second nature, without me even realizing it. Some of the ideas/goals that I had loosely formulated at various points in the past couple years just simply now required more detail.

For example, one of my goals was to spend at least 1 year beginning with birth with my child(ren). Granted, I've said this out loud before I hadn't really developed the idea (never written it down). By simply recording it, I realized that the statement was too broad, too vague. What am I thinking when I say spend a year with my child(ren)? Do I not want to work at all, i.e. be a full time stay at home mom? or do I want to work part-time? A short 3 minutes later, this is what the statement then looked like:

"Spend a year at home with each child from birth to his/her first birthday. This allows me to work from home, although not in excess of 20 hours per week and while I am off, I want to still make money. Specifically no less than $50k for that year."

I can almost see your response! :D But I did warn you that my goals were pretty "out there" but as I've said before, and I am now committed to this philosophy, I refuse to dream within any confines anymore. The world is mine because the world is God's and I belong to him. I will fight doubt, rational thinking, fear and "reality" (I've never made that amount with a full time job) and choose to believe that God is able to do so much more than my imagination can think up. On that note, I choose to believe the truth in a situation rather than dwelling on facts (thanks Deanie!). The truth being what God has said about me or the situation; the facts are what we call "reality".  hmmm, I think that is another blog post. ;)

Anyhoo, even now as I am reflecting on this, I have more questions to refine this goal...what kind of work do I want to work on? Writing? Research? Because the idea is to spend time at home with the child(ren), does this mean no outside-of-the-house work? As you can see, writing the goals down really opens up the creative process. I would suggest your details include answers to the basic questions:

• who (is anyone else involved?)
• what (more details about the object of the goal)
• when (time lines for goal achievement)
• where (is the goal tied to a particular place?)
• why (the rationale or meaning behind the goal)

I personally think the why is really important because as life unfolds and the goal seems impossible, you will need to think on the reasons behind the goal to help keep you focused. Anyway, today's challenge...write those goals down and for those that need more development, start adding details!

Grace peace and love,
Gia