Happy New Year, my friend! I hope your holiday season was restful and filled with joy! Unfortunately our household rang in 2019 with illness, doctor visits, stress and exhaustion...but I'm hopeful that the year is going to take pull a 180 from here on out!
I want to know: What do you want this year to look like? Do you have resolutions, goals, or a word? Last year, I create goals and focused on a word ("open"). And to be honest, by July I had either scrapped my goals in favor of new ones, or forgotten to think about my word at all.
So this year, I'm not setting goals. I'm not making resolutions, or putting pressure on myself to remember to think about one word all year. For 2019, I'm focusing on how I want this year to feel and envisioning what I want life to look like when 2020 rolls around.
For me this approach means that I am starting from a place where I look at the WHOLE picture, so that I'm better able to align my work with that vision, instead of creating a lot of boxes to check with busy work. Here's a quick idea of what I mean:
1. I started with the big questions: What do I want 2019 to look like? How do I want this year to feel? (for this step, I stuck to big picture ideas and nothing was off-limits or dumb...pure brainstorming and honesty)
2. Next, I reflected on my answers from step 1 and asked myself, How do I get to that vision and/or feeling? I ended up with 5 high-level focuses.
3. Then, I broke it down into action steps. What do I need to do in to feel successful within each of these items? What steps do I need to take in order to get from where I am to where I'm going? This gave me a great plan for the next few months! I plan to re-visit my vision mid-year and go through these steps again, because I'm starting to realize that year-long goals aren't the best way for me to plan. Personally, they get too abstract because a year is SUCH a long time.
So what does all of this mean for me in 2019? Well, after doing some serious reflection and brainstorming, I found that most of my vision has to do with being intentional. I want to stop doing busy work, and make sure everything I do has a purpose and is leading towards my overall vision. I want to be present and eliminate distractions when I'm with my family, or when I'm working, or anything in between. I want to focus on building connections and authentic relationships with my friends and new acquaintances, and avoid the temptation to hole up at home and become a hermit.
In short, you'll be seeing some changes coming to my channels, and (hopefully) more focus and direction across my brand. I hope these changes make our time together more meaningful, and it helps free me up to serve you better. And as always, I love hearing from you! If you have any questions or would like to see me talk about something specific in 2019, let me know!
So here's to 2019, friend! May it be our best year yet!