Most of us start out with big dreams and hopes and many of us get lost along the way. Sometimes a parent’s desires can overtake our own or we change to suit a partner. We may get distracted by work or busy with being a parent. And our own dreams and hopes may change. All of these things can be OK if we are OK with them but it is important to make sure you are happy with the life you are creating. It is important to remember to set your own life goals and work on reaching them. Today, Lisa Druxman, founder of FIT4MOM and author of The Empowered Mama, will share with us some tips on how to set life goals.
Lisa Druxman Shares How To Set Life Goals
Becoming a parent is a very powerful, life-changing event. It is often necessary to recalibrate at some point and make sure you have a balance that is working for you. The Empowered Mama book is all about inspiring us to rediscover ourselves and fall in love with motherhood and life. Chapter 3 of her book focuses on how to design your life. The first step in how to set life goals is learning (or remembering) how to dream and envision your life and taking an honest look at where you are now and where you want to be. She also goes into details on how to create an action plan to achieve those goals.
The following book excerpt from Chapter 3, focuses on how to set life goals because for many of us, that is the hardest part. Taking the time to center on ourselves and what we want out of life and giving ourselves permission to have goals is a very important first step.
This excerpt is reprinted with permission from The Empowered Mama by Fair Winds Press. The book is a one year guide to help you reclaim your time, your health and yourself! To get your copy, including special bonuses, go to www.empoweredmamabook.com.
Design your life. Get charged up to lead like a mom and get ready to create positive changes in your life. It’s time to get clear about what you want that life to look like. In this chapter, I will help you get started on designing your life — after we get serious about your dreams.
Dreams / Vision
When you were a kid, you probably painted pictures in your head of what you wanted your life to look like. My daughter, Rachel, is imagining that she will be a vet and a teacher. My son Jacob is imagining having an indoor basketball court and bowling alley in his house. I’m not one to squash any dreams, so we support those ideas with plans. I will help you do the same.
First, you need know what your dreams are; you can’t build a solid plan on a vague idea! We talk about getting clear on goals for things like losing weight or accomplishing something at work. But what about what you want your life to look like, feel like? What do you dream of doing? Do you have a clear vision of it? And when do you want this to happen? (As my friend Annie Fonte says, “someday is not on any calendar.”)
I find it interesting that most often the moms I talk with want things like more time to exercise, more time for self, and more time in nature — not things that cost money, like fancy houses or cars. So if you’re using that excuse for not getting clear about your dreams, you’ll need to find a different one… or maybe just do the following exercise.
Dreams Exercise
Take a few minutes to write down your dreams, whether you think they are realistic or not. Create a vivid picture of what a successful, happy life would look like for you. In your dream life, where are you living, who is around you, what are you doing, what is a perfect day like, and how does it all feel? Write down as much detail as you can come up with.
Wheel of Life
Dreams are all well and good, but how can we turn them into anything real? Can they really come true? Zig Ziglar, author and motivational speaker, says: “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.” I absolutely believe that, and I will show you how you can too.
One of my favorite tools is Zig’s Wheel Of Life. His Wheel of Life concept looks at different areas of your life as one whole picture with the following different sections:
- Career
- Social
- Financial
- Family
- Physical
- Mental
- Spiritual
You assess each area of your life as it is right now, and chart your rating on a “wheel” (see below) to get a quick snapshot of how balanced your life is. A wheel should be round, but when you fill out this assessment you will probably realize that your wheel is a little (or a lot!) off kilter. We all tend to focus more heavily on certain areas of our life, perhaps completely neglecting other important ones. The first step in bringing those areas of your life closer to a balance is to take an honest look at where you put most of your time and attention.
Wheel of Life Exercise, part 1
Take a look at the different areas of your life from finance to romance and rate them 1 – 10 (10 being highest satisfaction) by putting a big dot on the line beside that number. After you’ve rated all the areas, draw a line from one dot to the next, the whole way around the wheel.
What is the shape you end up with after you connect those dots? The ideal balance shows as a large circle, but chances are that your life looks like a more jagged shape that probably wouldn’t roll very well. That’s how it feels when some areas of your life are out of balance, doesn’t it?
Let’s take a closer look at your wheel.
Which low scoring area causes the most angst in your gut?
That’s the area to focus on with a plan to raise that score. Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through that process later in this chapter, but you can start right away by carving out a bit of time to learn, plan or play with a focus on that area.
Setting Life Goals
I hope you found this excerpt using in learning how to set life goals. For me that last section really gets to the heart of setting life goals. You have to listen to your gut. If you know there is something that you are doing that you long to be doing, or that you are doing that crushes your soul, then you have found the area to focus on. Think constructively about how you improve in this area. We often tend to put off these types of things that aren’t fun to think about when we can’t find a quick, easy solution. Facing the issues head on and creating life goals is essential to get where we want to be. If you don’t have all the answers on how to reach those life goals immediately, that is OK. Step one is realizing you have the life goals and then you can work on breaking them down in smaller chunks that you can work towards accomplishing.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed spending a little time on yourself and thinking about how to set life goals that will improve your life. If you feel comfortable, share with us some items off your life goals list. It can help inspire others!
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