Tomatoes love the heat of summer, snowdrops bloom in winter, and daffodils appear in spring. To everything there is a season, and it's the same with your goals!
We get impatient, though, don't we? When you've set good goals and identified needed change, you might feel desperate for the change to happen right now. Or, maybe you're just SO EXCITED about the goals you've set that you want to get started on all of them right away. We've been there, too!
That fire in your belly for change is good, and it's needed—because cultivated goals are a long game, and you'll need a well of passion as you live them out. But if that fire is telling you to go big on everything all at once, to burn it all down and build it back up overnight, it's healthy to redirect some of that energy into a more sustainable effort. Enter: the Yearly Overview in your PowerSheets® goal planner!
The Yearly Overview is a space to intentionally look ahead and place your goals where you think they'll thrive best. By looking at the entire year at once, you can make a plan for your action steps across all of your goals and easily see if you're growing too much in each month or season.
The Yearly Overview is placed right before the Goal Action Plan pages in your 2023 One-Year PowerSheets (pages 26 and 27), but many users like to fill it out after they've completed their GAPP.
Here are five simple ways to make the most of your Yearly Overview.
Focus on the first season.
Don't feel you need to fill in every action step for the entire year at once—take it one season at a time, if needed. Once you've taken a few steps forward over the next few months, your next steps will become more clear.
Spread out your starts.
Working on all of your goals with the same intensity is a recipe for goal failure. Instead, think of focusing on 1-2 at a time with just small steps in others. If everything's a priority, nothing's a priority, right? Less is more, especially in January and February.
Tip: Consider assigning start dates to each of your goals and spreading out their start dates over the four seasons of the year. By assigning a few goals to each quarter, you'll lessen your overwhelm, focus more intently on each goal, and make progress in each more quickly.
Consider your resources.
Check your goals to see whether it's realistic to make progress on them in a season ahead with the resources—time, patience, willpower, focus, space, money—you have. In addition to your goal action steps, you might consider noting major work deadlines, family events, or travel in each month (all of which can affect the time you have available to work on your goals).
Write in pencil.
There is freedom in the pencil! Plans and circumstances will shift throughout the year, and so can your goals. If the Yearly Overview feels too permanent, try writing in pencil. The eraser might just become your new best friend :)
Another option for maximum flexibility: write out your action steps on thin sticky notes. It's a bit more cumbersome, but doing so will allow you to easily rearrange your next steps until you find a plan that works for you.
Consider color coding.
To make your Yearly Overview easy to digest, you might consider color coding your action steps by goal or differentiating between Habits and Finish Lines with two distinct colors. The tiny dot stickers in the Goal-Setting Sticker Book are perfect for this, or you might use Super Tip or Mildliner markers.
Tip: Even if you don't color code anything, returning to your Yearly Overview and crossing out action steps as you complete them throughout the year is a great way to stay on track and notice your little-by-little efforts adding up!
How do you grow a garden? You tend to it little by little, over time—not all at once. From day-to-day or week-to-week, your goal progress might not look like much. But over time, with consistency, your small actions will add up. Pacing yourself and being realistic about how much you can accomplish in a given day, week, or month will keep you moving forward and give you greater satisfaction along the way!
We'd love to hear: How do you like to use the Yearly Overview? Leave a note in the comments!
Emily Thomas
This is His Year: our first-of-its-kind workbook to let your faith inform the goals you set for the New Year.
Set, plan, and track progress toward the goals that matter most, big or small, the things you’ve always wanted to do—with PowerSheets!