Learn from my blond moments

Happy 2021 my friends, phew we made it through 2020. I want reflect for a moment on 2020, because although it was a very challenging and unprecedented year in many years, it also brought some good things forward.

• People worldwide started to come together more often via virtual means.
• Families reached out to one another and more often. I know this was true for me and my family.
• New businesses were created due to the pandemic.
• Families learned how to adapt to being together more often without distractions and a zillion activities outside the home.
• People learned how to create and develop virtual businesses or make their business more virtual.

Those are just a few good things that came out of 2020 and I’m sure you could list a few more. Feel free to list them below. But now I want to look forward and focus on 2021.

I love a new year because it represents a fresh start, a new day, a new beginning. Every New Year’s Eve I like to go back and first review the goals of that year. I like to see what I have accomplished and what I need to add to the next year’s list. Then I write down my goals for the next year and outline what I hope to accomplish.

I have a confession to make because I am all about setting goals, keeping them in front of you, and then chunking down the big goals to weekly and daily activities. Well, I was a terribly confused and baffled when I couldn’t find my written 2020 goals anywhere. I looked in all of my folders, google docs, Evernote and any other piece of software where I take notes and I could not find them. At first, I was so upset because now I couldn’t go back and see what I had accomplished and what I needed to add for 2021. Guess, it’s par the course for the craziness of 2020!! It bothered me for a bit but then I changed my thinking. I said to myself come on Cath you know what happened in 2020 and you already know what needs to be done in 2021, so let’s move forward from there.

So, I started my process of writing down my goals and would like to share a few learning lessons from my blond moment including lost goals and goals that were not achieved…

NOT SETTING GOALS: something as little as losing your previous written goals could stop us from actually setting goals. I was talking with someone that day (New Year’s Eve) that has no idea how to set goals, had every excuse in the book why she could not, and blamed her crazy life on not having time to set goals. I was dumfounded and just said out loud, I’m so confused and sorry cannot relate to anyone that doesn’t set goals. How do you know where you are going, or if you got where you wanted to go, or know what changes you need to make etc. Bottom line that I’m trying to make here is make sure you write your goals down, which leads right into the second learning lesson.

KEEP YOUR GOALS IN FRONT OF YOU: there were several goals that I knew I wanted to reach in 2020 but did not achieve them. Partly because holy smokes I didn’t have the goals in front of me and like I embarrassingly told you, couldn’t find them. I know I wrote them down but, they were NOT IN FRONT OF ME. When I say keep them in front of you, I mean have them present so that you can read them EVERY SINGLE DAY. Or post them where you will see them every day. Keep them in front of you to be sure to keep those dreams and goals alive and so you can stay focused and know what to do next.

CHUNK DOWN YOUR GOALS: I’m going to give you a short outline on how I do this. (1) I write out a list of the huge over arching goals for the year, basically dream and brain dump all my ideas. (2) Then I go back and break them down into categories. For example, I have business/lifestyle, Holy Appointment, my home, personal/recreation etc. (3) from there I do another brain dump and write down all the steps it will take for me to reach each of those goals. (4) then I try to put them into which month these steps should be done (5) then I break them out into the tasks I need to do each week.  I do go into great detail of this in my coaching programs; thus the reason for my appall of not knowing where my goals are, seriously?

PRAY OVER GOALS: my next step is to pray over these goals and make sure these goals are from the Lord, make sure I’m on the right track and in line for what the Lord wants me to do next. To be honest, I pray through the whole process, but I just want to stress this point. Don’t leave God out of your goals or the methods of how you are going to reach your goals. I pray that the goals I set are goals from the Lord and already know He will provide a way for them to be reached.

TRACK PROGRESS: now forgive me but I blew it in 2020. I do know three of my goals were to meet with girlfriends/hike at least once a week, finish my book, and look for property where I could hold coaching retreats. Well so much was going on that I didn’t track anything. But l did finish my book which will be published here in early 2021, gratefully was able to do some amazing hikes with my girlfriends each week, and looked for property. I’m still in shock and awe! The Lord provided not only property but a home that I purchased (holy smoky, more on that later). All the other goals on the list and some were a big deal, I did not accomplish. This is why tracking progress is really important. I typically like to do this either on a monthly or quarterly basis. I look at the progress of where I am at with each of the BIG goals, evaluate how I am doing, and if there are any changes or celebrations that need to happen. What this step does is help to re-focus and change daily actions if needed or change whatever needs to be changed to ensure the goal is reached at the set time.

CELEBRATE YOUR WINS: don’t forget to celebrate and give yourself credit when you reach do ANY of the daily actions. Maybe if you are doing a quarterly check set up in advance a gift to yourself on how you will celebrate. It has to be something that will motivate you to keep going and something you want to do or have, so that you keep pushing through the dips. I’ve set something up in March 2021, that I will share with you when it happens!!

STAY FOCUSED: the final step is to simply do something every single day to work towards your big goal. We all know the sayings, you can’t eat an elephant in a day, Rome wasn’t built in a day etc. I encourage you to give yourself grace and patience while you work through your goal achieving process. It takes time, it takes diligence, it takes prayer, it’s takes consistency, and it takes focus. Pray for all of these things!! Keep doing one action every day and at the end of 201 you will be amazed at what you have accomplished.  

Love ya my girlfriends, please let me know in the comments what you learned today from my blond moments!! Remember YOU ARE WHO GOD SAYS YOU ARE