Cultivated Life – 2018 Yearly Goals

“The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.” ― Melody Beattie

There are many things that I LOVE about the Powersheets Intentional Goal Planner. (Read my post about why I chose PowerSheets here)

The prep work is very in depth and takes a lot of time if you allow yourself to truly delve into the work. It is very rewarding to reach the end of prep work and see all you have learned about the previous year, about yourself, what worked and what did not work. Then use these lessons as a catalyst for new work and new goals for the upcoming year!

As with 2017, I did the “Pinwheel of Life” evaluation prior to my prep work for 2018. (Will share more in future post.)

I have 10 areas of my life that I evaluate, on a scale of 1-10, “How Am I Really Doing?”. Each area is color coded, which is important for me because I let my OCD run free when doing my Powersheets and my planner.

(Yes, you read that correctly. All my color coding corresponds to my goal for that area and anything written both in my planner and Powersheets, Tending List, that ties back to that goal is written in that color 🙂 )

Lara Casey encourages us to be messy! I have several versions of my goals written before I am content to let them sit a week or so and marinate before writing the down in my Powersheets planner! And at the end of the month my Tending Sheets can be a hot mess at times, with white out, scratches out, arrows to move that goal to another month and/or added notes in the margins.

Some of my goals do not have deadliness, they are things that I want to cultivate for the rest of my time on this Earth. For example: “Deepening my relationship with Christ” and being “Healthy from the Inside Out”.

Some of my 2018 goals are continuations of 2017 goals, because some goals just take a little bit longer to “tend” before growing, such as my career goals and financial goals. (Read my 2017 goals here)

Some are new goals – branched out from other areas of my life, that needed to be taken as a mini goal from one area and made into its own area with its own goals, such as my community goal and my relationship goal. Both “Being intentional with giving back to the community” and “Loving CJ well” make my heart SMILE!

These are my goals for 2018. The areas I am cultivating in my life are: Faith, Health, Relationship, My Tribe (Family & Loved ones), Self – Care, Lifelong Learning, Finances, Career/Work, Community and Creativity.

Each area has a goal; broken down into categories or mini goals and these have small achievable steps to meet the mini goal, thereby achieving the larger goal.

As previously stated, each goal is assigned a color (as seen in above photo). Everything associated to that area of life is written in that color into my Powersheets, Tending List and my in planner.

Traditional goal setting DOES NOT work for me. Oh yea lets pick a New Years resolution … how many years did I arbitrarily choose something and how often did I not reach that goal.

Just picking out ideas is not what goal setting is about. Lots of prep work, digging deep, finding out what truly matters to you and on a better point WHY does it matter to you. That is how goals are set.

Planning out obtainable small steps is how you reach your big goals! And who does not like checking things off lists!? (Or filling bubbles, adding smilies, marking or crossing off the item, whatever it is that you do to show the task is completed!)

I know that process helps me feel productive and helps me to keep moving forward in my goals!

Do not get me wrong, you do not have to have everything written out perfectly and all pretty and wrapped up in a tidy bow.

Goal setting is messy! And you can add and take away as the year goes on! A lot of people do this!

What are your goals for 2018?

Share in the comments below!

I would love to hear what you are striving towards in 2018!

@Brandi R