Keeping one’s life in some kind of normal balance takes a level of effort to which I have been unaccustomed.
This year, I set just seven goals for myself. Only one of them is a work goal. It’s doing dual work as a financial goal, by the way, so it really is just one goal for 2019.
This means that I have to pay attention to the other areas of my life in a positive and meaningful way. Which is great!
Except, fuck me, it takes real effort to pull myself out of a blind work focus and enjoy the rest of my life. Seriously.
So you know what I’m talking about, I should probably tell you that this year I’ve set goals in all of my life domains. I don’t have hyper-specific domains like ‘parent’. Instead, I set five segments and then categorised me and what I do into those segments.
My life has the following domains:
- spirit (which is what it is, plus study)
- creative (self-explanatory)
- physical (body, health, environment)
- tribe (relationships of all kind)
- work (self-explanatory)
Now, grasshopper, if you’re not a one-eyed working person like me, you might think it’s strange that hitting goals in only five domains would take effort. If so, I want to celebrate you for being so awesome! High five!
Disclaimer: The effort is real, even though I’m not doing all of them at once.
If you’ve ever had a bunch of goals you’re trying to do all at once, you know first-hand that it’s a recipe for failure. It’s with this very good reason that Michael Hyatt advocates only chasing 2 or 3 per quarter.
When I set my goals this year, I cheered about keeping things simple. And inwardly groaned at the sheer effort it takes to scale back to just three goals per quarter.
Right now, I have 3 on the go: One habit goal, two achievement goals. And I feel stretched. How on earth did I chase a flurry of goals for years and years?
Oh, right. They were all work goals. Oh, and I didn’t achieve the majority of them. And last year I didn’t even have goals. That’s how I did it (or didn’t it).
You see, dear reader, when as a workaholic you finally start developing every aspect of your life in a mindful way, the effort not to create a one-sided beast is real.
You have to:
- Create time for things that aren’t work, which means keeping work inside its own time framework
- Change your life structure so that work doesn’t take over every moment of every day… including, if necessary, adjusting your daily routines
- Apply yourself to the effort, even when every part of you is screaming out to do something else.
So it is that I am five days into a habit chain. I broke the chain in the first week, and as a result am determined not to break it again! It’s a simple habit of walking for 30 minutes every day, and 5 days in, I am already looking forward to it.
Speaking of which, I need to go for my walk.
In summary
When you first start breaking yourself out of a framework that is ‘all work goals because that’s the only thing I am striving for’, it takes huge amounts of effort, and the right structure. But this is only because it’s like turning a gigantic ship in a new direction. Once you have movement, and persist, it gets easier. When it does, your entire life improves.
How do you structure your goals? Leave a comment and let me how you mindfully keep all parts of your life moving, and what it means to you.
