How to Set Goals With Your PowerSheets: Part 5

Welcome back to Part Five of PowerSheets Prep Week! Just joining us? You're in the right spot! Whether you unwrap PowerSheets® on Christmas Day or they're already sitting on your desk, we intentionally started our 2020 PowerSheets Prep Work early so you would have everything you need when you’re ready to get started.

If you're just joining us, catch up here:
Part 1: Pages 5-13
Part 2: Pages 14-21
Part 3: Pages 22-33
Part 4: Pages 34-59

If you've been following along each day this week, you're at the end of your Prep Work! You’ve created (and color-coded 😉) a few goal that are connected to what matters most to you, and now it's time to start living them out!

Grab your PowerSheets and let's keep going!

How to Set Goals With PowerSheets®: Part 5 from Lara Casey on Vimeo.

A few things Lara mentions in today's video:
— Our downloadable wildcard pages (the link is in your PowerSheets!) and Wildcard Page Pack to customize your planner and help you on your way to your goals.
— Magnetic page markers to hold your place on an important page
— The Accessory Pouch, which is big enough to hold all of your favorite pens and stickers  
— How to prepare well for each month ahead with our simplified monthly prep pages
— How to use your calendar spread to plan out action steps you'd like to take each month
— An introduction to the heart of living out your goals, the Tending List!

A few additional tips for making your first Tending List:

Pay attention to what’s ahead. The Prepare Well page and calendar in your Monthly Tending pages help you get everything out of your head—important to-dos, events, birthdays and anniversaries, things you’re excited about, worries and stresses, and your hopes for the weeks ahead. 

Review your goals. Whether it’s your first Tending List or your fiftieth, before you start working on any Tending List, remind yourself of what you’re working towards! Look at your Action Plans and your Goal Refresh sections (if applicable) to be reminded of your WHY for each goal. You're going to be excited about your new goal of exercising when you connect it back to the reason you're doing it.

Write all your ideas down. This is the fun part! Write out all you want to cultivate or accomplish this month: goals you want to take action on, habits you want to grow, ways you’ll rest or recharge, and relationships you want to cultivate. Need a few ideas?

• Look at the starting steps you brainstormed in your Goal Action Plan Pages. Are there steps you wrote out that fall into the current month or season?
• Remember in the PowerSheets Prep Work when we asked you which three areas of your life you most want to cultivate moving forward? Give extra weight to those goals!
• Browse our Goal Action Plan blog series for inspiration. We broke out some common goal buckets (such as parenting, fitness, nutrition, and finances) into simple monthly, weekly, and daily goals to give you starting steps.

Simplify. Once you’ve written everything you think you want to do this month on paper, it’s time to cut it down and focus on the most important things. Don’t be afraid to get messy—circle a priority, scratch things out, and highlight to your heart’s content to help you start to get a visual for what’s ahead. Now is a great time to look back at your calendar. If you have a full schedule and are traveling multiple weekends, consider taking on fewer goals for the month.

We know how it feels to be raring to go—you‘re feeding off the momentum of setting the best goals you've ever had, and you’re ready to dive in and accomplish all the things! But. But. But! Remember, we do goals differently around here. We know good things grow slowly—including our goals. Give yourself room to let your goals flourish over the next few months.

Sort your action items. Assign each action item as monthly, weekly, or daily. If it's something you can make progress on in a month or more big picture, it's a monthly action item. If it's something you want to tend to a little at a time, it's a weekly action step. If it's a habit you want to cultivate, it's a daily action step.

Start each action step with a verb. Once you’ve decided what’s going on your Tending List, start filling it in! Starting each of your goals with an action verb makes them less passive and will give you a kick in the pants each time you read them!

Color-code to stay focused. Our Goal Setting Sticker Book includes color coding tools to help you see progress on your yearly goals and remind you of where you’re going each month. Psst—are you thinking, that's not for me? You might be surprised! :) It can be helpful to have a visual representation of where you're spending your time! Here are a few tips to help you get started!

Don’t overthink it or compare your goals. No one expects you to have perfect goals each and every month. After all, this isn't traditional goal setting; it’s grace-filled goal setting! Commit to daily tending. Our lives bloom through daily decisions and habits—not just the giant leaps made once in a while. Lean into the little by little progress, and be willing to celebrate all that you do accomplish in the coming weeks!

Come up with a system for checking your Tending List and marking your progress. Even good goals can't come to life when you don't know what they are! Put your Tending List where you'll see it every day—whether you keep your PowerSheets open on your desk or use the perforation to tear it out and hang it on your fridge or mirror. And join Team Cultivate for #TendingListTuesday every week when we mark our own personal PowerSheets progress!

Put next month’s PowerSheets Prep Day on your calendar! Team Cultivate uses the last Friday of each month to do our monthly PowerSheets Prep Work, and it's marked on our team calendar each month as a reminder. Whether you join us on that day or use a different one, go ahead and mark it in your calendar!

Don’t have your 2020 PowerSheets Intentional Goal Planner yet? Today is the LAST day for guaranteed domestic delivery by Christmas, so it's the perfect day to order! You'll be so glad you did!

We're love to hear: what's going on your January Tending List? Tell us in the comments!