Image by Stephanie
If you’re just tuning in, this https://exness-vn.net/mt5 post is the second in a series on creating budgets with purpose. Every Thursday through December 16 (with the exception of Thanksgiving), I’m sharing a unique process for managing your personal finances that will help you save for your big goals and eliminate guilt in spending. We started by defining values.
Last week’s post was a lot of work, right? It gets easier from here – I promise. Now that we have a strong foundation, the rest flows pretty naturally.
So this week, we’re on to the fun stuff: dreaming big!
Step 2: Make Your Dreams Real by Writing Them Down
Since we started with Stephen Covey, I’d like to continue with another passage from Habit 2:
You may find that your mission statement will be much more balanced, much easier to work with, if you break it down into the specific role areas of your life and the goals you want to accomplish in each area…Writing your mission in terms of the important roles in your life gives you balance and harmony. It keeps each role clearly before you. You can review www.exness-vn.net/mt5 your roles frequently to make sure that you don't get totally absorbed by one role to the exclusion of others that are equally or even more important in your life.
Roles and goals give structure and organized direction to your personal mission…The important application at this point is to identify roles and long-term goals as they relate to your personal mission statement.
It's Easiest to Start in the Short-Term
When I start my budgeting process, I pull out my personal mission statement and get to work. While Covey is pretty vague about time periods, I find that goal-setting for the next calendar year is a good place to start. Some of my goals for this year were:
- Take a trip to Peru to visit family. (I am open to people and opportunities)
- Increase charitable contributions. (I give before I receive)
- Renovate the downstairs bathroom. (I create a welcoming home)
- Throw a blow-out birthday party for my husband. (I tend my marriage + I give before I receive)
- Invest in this blog and a little something else I’m not ready to talk about yet. (I act on my passions)
And so on…
Since I’m married, and my husband and I share finances, he goes through the same process. For instance, he is committed to http://exness-vn.net/mt5 being a lifelong athlete, so he sets goals for miles and races run.
But Don't Stop There...Think GRAND!
But, it’s not enough to stop at your one-year goals. If you do, how will you ever achieve your pie-in-the-sky aspirations? Next it’s time to think big. No, think grand!
Let’s start with another exercise to get you warmed up. This one is from The Fire Starter Sessions.
How do you want to feel?
…when you walk through the door of your studio or your office? When you unlock your store, ship your product, and pick up the phone? When you cash the check, accept the award, finish your masterpiece, or make the sale…
How do you want to feel?
That question is the answer to your strategic mapping, your to-do list, your business plans, your objectives, your prioritizing.
Knowing how you actually want to feel is the most potent form of clarity that you can have. Acting on generating those feelings is the most creative thing you can do with your life…
Culturally speaking, I think we have the whole ambition, life-planning thing backwards. We come up with our goals and visions, and we intend that actualizing them will make us feel successful, worthy, satisfied. And of course that‘s predominantly the case—we set a goal, we reach it, we feel great. Unless of course, we feel empty, or flustered, or anxious that what we‘re doing isn‘t working to fill the hole—that we‘re still missing something.
How can you distinguish between the goals of the soul and trying to live someone else‘s dream?
How do you know that you‘re reaching for a goal that will be truly satisfying when you achieve it? You can‘t. It‘s impossible to predict. But it is possible to stack the odds of fulfilment in your favour.
First, you get clear on how you want to feel.
Then, you do stuff that makes you feel that way.
Powerful stuff, right? So powerful, in fact, that my list is still a draft in progress. But it looks something like this:
- Courageous
- Loved
- Fiercely Intelligent
- Generous
Your turn.
This week’s action is to write out a list of your one-year and long-term goals.
No holding back! The process of envisioning your goals and writing them down makes you infinitely more committed to them. And, if you want a budget that makes you feel supported – i.e. one that you can stick to – it’s critical to know what goodies you’re holding out for.
If you’re feeling particularly courageous, I’d love it if you shared your goals, either in the comments or a post of your own.
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