Are you one of those people that starts looking around in December wondering wtf you're going to do next year? In your head you know that you want this year to be different than the last, you want to break from your shell, do something EPIC... but you don't really now where to start.
My first year doing a vision board was something like that...
I didn't know what I wanted to accomplish. Heck, I didn't even know what I was capable of. (At that time, I had only successfully accomplished a worthless degree, years of waitressing jobs and overall failing at adulting.)
However, that was the year I was determined to turn my little sinking ship of life around and (even though I had no idea what I was going to do) I created an action plan that would ultimately help me figure it out.
START WITH A PIE-IN-THE-SKY GOAL.
Your pie in the sky goal (I also like to call this your dream goal) is a goal that is very large if you look at it from where you currently are. This is a goal that you'll need to step out of yoru comfort zone to reach. You might have to learn a new skill or leverage the help of a team to do something that you've never done before. This is a goal that, over the course of a year will stretch you.
In my life the goal was simply to stop failing and figure out what I wanted. I planned on pursuing this to the fullest extent of my abilities and with all of my time.
When you've been doing the same thing over and over again for years, it can be hard to find a different version of yourself that is actually succeeding. However, if you take some time to believe that you can achieve more than you currently have, you'll get there.
BREAK DOWN YOUR PIE IN THE SKY GOAL INTO MINI GOALS.
You can't eat your great-grandma's sweet potato pie in one bite... and you wouldn't try to conquer a large goal all at once either. (I know, I'm so corny, but it's true!) Reaching this large goal can seem very daunting, but to make it more manageable (and easier to navigate) you'll want to break that goal down into small pieces. These mini-goals are smaller goals that serve as checkpoints on the way to achieving your overall goal.
In my example where I wanted to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, my mini goals would be to:
Take classes in different areas to decide what professions interested me.
Join meetup groups to start networking in different industries.
Choose a graduate program to continue my education.
BREAK DOWN YOUR MINI-GOALS INTO ACTIONABLE ITEMS.
You'll notice that each of these "mini-goals" are relatively large in itself. That's a good thing! Your mini goals can be broken down even further to the daily action items you'll need to make in order to move forward on the goals.
In my example, to take classes in the different areas to see what professions interest me, I would have to:
Research free and paid courses that would expose me to new areas.
Register for a new class and put effort into taking the classes and practicing the exercises and doing the homework.
Re-evaluating how I felt about the program and the field as a whole.
Determing whether I wanted to continue taking more of these classes or try out a different professional program.
Not only is the work of learning about different programs tedious, it would require me to continuously walk down paths, conquering challenges and learning new things with no idea whether it would be a worthwhile journey. However, these are necessary steps to follow if I wanted to figure out what I was good at.
Breaking your mini goals down into smaller action items will help you see the smaller, daily actions you can to take to make your dreams a reality. That way you can start implementing them in your life asap!
The new year is a great time to re-evaluate where you are in your life and where you want to go. Starting your year off with a large goal will put you in a great position to crush your year!
xoxo
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cyrene is a fun and accomplished workshop facilitator, learning and development guru and Human Resources professional. Being at the helm of Thrive Lounge has been a long-time dream. Through vision board workshops she plans to accomplish two-way learning. Sharing her vast years of knowledge to motivate and encourage others; while simultaneously getting the reward of great energy, ideas and questions to ponder back from each group. A super win-win. Please join our Thrive Lounge community so you too can benefit!
