Life on Purpose! Not letting your days just pass by and life just happen to you. It means making some changing habits, thinking about your vision for you life, setting goals and putting them into action.
If you want to live your life on purpose then you need to put the time in to decide what it would look like for YOU.
You can’t look around at anyone else when you make your list, you have to listen to your own values, your own interests, your own needs.
There are lots of ways to write out your values and goals that line up with them, of course the Life on Purpose workbook is a great way to do this.
But no matter how you have taken the time to set some vision and goals for the coming year I want to help you take the next step.
Because if you are like me, the next step is where things tend to fizzle out. This was a hard step for me to learn. Really, I had no clue how people got from bold lettered list of goals #beawesometoday to actually getting them done. I felt like there was this big gap I couldn’t quite fill.
Over the past few years I tried different attempts at getting things done…..
Here are some strategies to put your goals into action!
1. monthly challenges
eg. the whole30, or the moms30for30 – where the all or nothing approach can tire you in the process but hopefully it will train you to make some lasting changes. For example, the Whole30 resulted in me changing my breakfast from a sweet and carb-laden, like waffles or toast with PB and honey, to now eggs and vegetables WHAT!? I’m an ADULT PEOPLE! MAKING GOOD BREAKFAST CHOICES! I would never have made this shift without being almost forced into it by the Whole30.
2. one small habit
I had this year where I would work on changing one small habit each month. They were habits like reading instead of scrolling social media each night, read my planner each morning, do ten sit-ups a day, drink more water, take vitamins every day, exercise in the morning *snort. Some of these have been lasting and useful in my life – like I’ve read a buttload of books! Then sometimes I picked a habit that just wasn’t right for my season of life and it was a flop – who is getting up in the morning to exercise when they hate both these things? I can’t do squats until my waffle has settled
3. the weekly focus
This was one of my most successful approaches. Each week, in my bullet journal, I would set out three things to focus on. A focus for my parenting, worklife, and personal life. These were very useful for me to stay on task without making it an errand I had to complete in a day, rather a mindset I could approach my week with.
examples of my weekly focus would be
family: encourage curiosity in kids
work: planning an email newsletter
personal: do more reading
I do think it needs to sometimes be taken a step further to break it down into steps or ideas. Like for ‘curiosity for kids’ I am most successful if I list out some things we could do that would accomplish this.
4. daily activity
This is jumping off the weekly focus. If I could write down one thing to do that day that would help me with any of my goals/habits/projects then it would give me the mindset to prepare for it and actually get it done.
I found this approach most helpful when I had all three kids at home.
I would have to plan out what we would eat, a craft or something to keep them busy, and any kind of task or project I hoped to do (like send an email, or sort laundry, or write a blog post). Sometimes this approach can help feel like you have your ISH together and sometimes you toss it out the window when your kid is sick and your toilet overflows and you ran out of coffee (or so I’ve heard).
And remember, Beyonce wasn’t built in a day and it is never too late to start.
Take your time to be thoughtful in planning. Give yourself some grace as you challenge yourself in new ways. You will always have to be mindful of the season you are in, especially in motherhood. But you can always do at least one thing each day that will contribute to your overall goals and vision for your life.
And if you want me to walk you through this, and help you to take control of all nine areas of your life then check out the Life on Purpose Roadmap
