Accountability
Hello, Lemonader’s!
This is the last post of my Goal Post Series and I am grateful you have taken this journey with me! I’ve liked having a theme for the month. Do you? If so, let me know in the comments so I can plan more themed parties for us!
The last piece of the puzzle is Accountability. This is a new one for me, but I have so many goals that I wanted to report to someone so my goals wouldn’t get lost in the melee of my big, beautiful life. At the end of my list of Promises I added one more new category: Giddy-Up Goal Celebrations.
I wanted to be able to celebrate all of my small wins and be encouraged in my journey. I ended up with 4 accountabilities (of course, you can have as many or as little as you like). I have a Podcast Accountability group with two other awesome women that keep me on track with my podcasting goals. We meet via Skype every Tuesday. I have a Book-Writing Accountability team member who we simply email each other every Wednesday on our progress and encourage each other. I have a Speech accountability that I do every Thursday with guess who? Myself! And last, but definitely not least, I “hired” my best friend, Lizzie to check in with me monthly and then quarterly on my entire goal list.
And guess what? She is making me a gold star chart! How cool is that? She is most definitely a mom and wanted to make some sort of chart to show my progress and we giggled about gold stars, but then thought…why the heck not? It will be fun and you can bet I’ll be fighting for each of those earned gold stars!!
Goals are great. Goals written down are in a much higher percentile to actually happen and get accomplished. Goals that you have to report back to someone?? Over 90%, baby! I’m adding this element to rock my Promises this year!
And there you have it…4 blog posts on Dreaming Big, Reflection, Bite-Size Chunks, and Accountability. Now get out there and get ‘er done! I believe in you!
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The Boring Bliss of Routine
Is your routine answer “Life is busy.”? It’s the unmistakably counted on answer when you ask someone the dreaded socially correct question now known as a greeting in our fair culture of “How are you?”. Is your response different? A “fine, how are you?” perhaps? I’m just as guilty as the next person and it has become habit to say either “fine, how are you?” or if I know them a bit better, “I’m busy”. And if I hesitate (usually trying to think of how I really am so I can answer honestly) the person asking the question immediately thinks that something must be wrong in my life and jumps to conclusions that who knows what that has formed in their minds from sour milk to my dog dying.
Now that I’ve formed this little rant on the “how are you” question…I HAVE BEEN BUSY! Haha! I can honestly answer that my life has been busy. You have to understand that I am crazy OCD and an organizational freakazoid who has dialed in my “to-do list” and my “must-do” list so I’m practically scheduled out every day of the week. Throw in a trip to Oakland for a family affair, my women’s conference where I was in charge of the almost 50 women volunteers, a couple of relatives popping in to say hello for a few days, and a planned trip coming up for four days the end of this week, and I pretty much throw my perfectly laid out plan out the window. Well, not all of it…but it does get a bit more stressful and trying to shove 6 days of work into 3 days of available time.
BUSY VS ROUTINE
After some recuperating and catching up I realized that sometimes I consider my life boring. Not bad boring, but routine boring. The same old things week after week. The same chores, the same workouts, the same type of work. Wearing my retainers every night, praying, meditating, daily reading, meals…all of it! And then I remember my younger adult self. Scattered, not settled into a career or a happy marriage. When the dust settled on the last two weeks and as I look forward to this coming weekend trip, I realize that I LOVE the BORING BLISS OF MY ROUTINE.
I love that I’m the first one up every morning because my hubby and puppies are not morning beings. I love going downstairs and getting a glass of water first thing and putting away the dishes from the night before and laying out my breakfast utensils. I love saying my morning prayers, and doing my daily reading and journaling all before the rest of my household awakes. I absolutely LOVE everything about Lauri’s Lemonade Stand…from the podcast, to the blog, to Ms Penelope Pickwick (My Bookworm). I love the routine of cooking dinner or just going out if it’s been a long day and that I watch movies most weeknights with my hubby (If you haven’t seen the movie Embrace…or I Feel Pretty…I highly recommend them!).
In today’s blog I just want to publicly acknowledge the boring bliss of my routine. I absolutely love it. I love the busy moments and the quiet moments. I love the growth moments and the bliss moments that happen after the growth moments and I realize that I’ve learned something new. I love the boring bliss of my routine! The next time someone asks “how are you?” I will answer “Really Good, and you?” What will you say?
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Goal Posts 1 of 4 – Dream Big
Dream Big
What does it take to be focused on setting goals or what I have termed “Promises”? This year I decided to shake things up a bit and use different description words and generally make my goals a lot more FUN! I wanted to use my creativity and playfulness – we can sometimes be so stodgy, strict, and stick-in-the-muddy when it comes to making our serious goals.
Why?
I decided that while I am serious about reaching my goals there wasn’t a reason on earth not to make them fun, playful, creative and attractive.
The next Four Blogs will be entitled:
Dream Big, Reflections, Bite Size Chunks, and Accountability
For today, let’s focus on DREAMING BIG. How would you complete the following sentences?
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- If money were not an option, I would______________________________________________.
- If I could set my fear aside, I would______________________________________________.
- My dream job would be____________________________.
- If I had extra money to donate to any philanthropic organization I would pick__________________________.
- 3 Things I would add to my bucket list__________________________________.
- 3 Movies I’ve always wanted to see but haven’t taken the time are_____________________________________.
- If I had an entire day to myself I would spend it doing__________________________________.
- If I had more time to workout I would do_____________________________________.
- My Secret Destination Dream vacation would be_____________________________________.
- Something purely fun I want to learn___________________________________.
- I want to retire at age__________________.
- If I wrote a book it would be titled___________________________________.
- 2 Projects I’ve put off for entirely too long____________________________________.
- 1 House Project that I would love to finish this year____________________________________.
You get the idea here, right? Allow yourself to dream big. The goal of this exercise isn’t to necessarily see them ALL happen this year, but to realize or work on them throughout the year. Is Paris your dream vacation? Start a savings account specifically for that purpose, play a French film with subtitles while eating a crescent to keep your dream alive. Have a nagging house project? Write down what it would take to accomplish that goal.
For example, last year I wanted to get new carpet upstairs so long before that became a reality I started saving for the carpet, picked out the carpet and pad as well as got quotes for installation. Want to donate to a philanthropic organization but don’t have the money you would really like to donate? So what! They appreciate all donations. I donate $10/month to PCRM and this year my husband picked 4 different charities he wanted to support at $5/month each. Do something…not nothing.
And just as a side note…I do have on my promises list for something purely fun. My hubby and I are going to learn to pop wheelies on our mountain bikes! Yes!
After filling out your DREAMING BIG categories, it’s time to make them fun. Please tune in next week for the Reflections topic where I look at my goals that I started printing out in 2010 and how this year I changed them from stodgy to playful.
If this was helpful, please leave a comment below as I would love to hear from you!
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Goal Posts 3 of 4 – Bite Size Chunks
Bite Size Chunks
Now that you’ve Dreamed Big and had some time to Reflect, it’s time to set your actual goals by breaking them down into Bite Size Chunks. This year I decided I wanted to make my goals more fun instead of stodgy. I changed my goal title from Lauri’s Goals to Lauri’s Promises. I changed the Relationships category to Family Focus, Physical to Physical Well-being and Playtime, Financial to Abundant Wealth Prowess, Education to Cultivating Enlightenment, Spiritual to Soul Solutions. I even added two new categories this year: Creativity and my favorite? Recess!
Not only am I adding in more fun this year, but I have two pages of promises and this might help you, too. One set is a Promises Summary where it states my goals. The second set (and this is where the bite-size chunks come in) breaks down those promises into actual action steps. How will I accomplish my goals?
Let me share one with you so you get the idea.
Under my Recess Category I have a goal for a Weekly Date with guess who? Me! One my first set of Promises where it is a summary, it simply says, Weekly Dates with Myself. On the second set I have it broken out to say that not only will I have a weekly date with myself, but I will alternate each week from an evening to a daytime date. I have ideas written of a few dates I’ve done in the past and enjoyed and some I think might be fun. Not all of my dates have been a hit, by the way. Some felt as a downright waste of my time by the end, but consistency keeps me moving forward in the right direction so that I keep taking time for myself. Last week I simply set a date to pull out all of my stamp collection, see how much they were worth right now and make a list of a couple of collections I’d like to complete and added it to my wishlist for friends and family for my birthday and Christmas (yes, I’m the OCD one when it comes to lists and preparation…I always have a wishlist going! You should to!)
Now is time for YOUR action step.
You’ve Dreamed Big, you’ve Reflected on past goals that have and haven’t worked for you and where you are now. You are ready to make your Promises, but more importantly, ready to break them down into Bite Size Chunks so that you can actually see yourself accomplishing your goals.
Next week? The last piece of the puzzle to help you accomplish your goals or promises – Accountability. I’ll tell you that I’ve never taken this step before until this year and what I’ve done to make it happen for me.
Please leave a comment below and share one of your promises for this year. I love hearing from you!
