How To Set Achievable Goals | Begin With The End In Mind | Design Life

Hello and welcome to the Design Life blog, where we discuss Holistic Beauty, Personal Development and a little bit of magic.

'Begin with the end in mind' is a phrase that was made popular through Stephen R. Covey's book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I applied this phrase to my life once I could see, clearly in my mind, exactly what I wanted my life to look like. I told myself, if I can begin with the end (my vision) in mind, I will have a clear direction to guide my daily activities. What you choose to do every day, is creating your future. So if you know where you want to go, and you adjust your daily activities according to that, it is inevitable that you will eventually reach your desired destination. It is through this process that I feel like I have been able to take control of my life. I may not be able to control the wind, but with a clear destination, I can always adjust my sails, so that I am always moving towards where I want to be.

All things are created twice. When you begin with the end in mind, you are letting your inner vision guide you from your vision to it's physical manifestation. As Stephen Covey puts it, "The exercise of imagination is based on the principle that all things are created twice: first mentally and then the actual physical creation, with the physical following the mental in the same way a building follows a blueprint. By taking control of our own first creation, we can write or re-write our own scripts, thus taking some control and responsibility for the outcome." Taking control of your own first creation, means clarifying your vision, keeping it in mind and using it to guide your actions every day. If you do this, it's eventual manifestation is inevitable.

Let's say you are living in a small town and you want to go on a road trip with your friends to a big city, and there are lots of experiences you would like to have on the way. The best way to approach this journey is to choose an end destination and put it into your GPS. Even if you go off-course, your GPS will just recalculate and will always direct you towards your desired destination, regardless of how many places you stop to see along the way. You can plan, ahead of time, where the best places would be to sleep and stop for gas, which restaurants you'd want to try out along the way and whether you want to take longer or shorter routes (depending on whether you want to get there faster or do something on a specific route that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise).

In the same way, when you have a clear vision of what you want your life to be like (when you begin with the end in mind), it is much easier to plan how you will get there.

How To Set Goals

Once you have a clear vision in your mind, you are ready to start setting goals that will act as stepping stones to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

1. Begin with the end in mind: Set your long-term goals first. Be specific about what you want to do and by when you want to do it. Examples:

- I want to self-publish a book and sell 100 000 copies in 3 years.
- I want to start a Beauty Channel on YouTube and have one million subscribers in 5 years.
- I want to get my Bachelor's degree in English and go to Thailand to teach in 4 years.

Be sure to include things like how many (books you want to sell for example) and by when. You could even write an exact date! Then you are going to work backwards from there.

2. Set medium-term goals next. Ask yourself, what big steps will you need to take to achieve your long-term goal. Here are some examples of medium-term goals based on one of the long-term goals above:

- I am going to write my book and self-publish it within one year.
- I am going to create my own website as a means to represent myself and the book, and I will launch it two months before I publish the book.
- I am going to invest X amount every month, once the book is published, to advertise it so the people who would love to read it, can find it.

3. Set short-term goals last. Examples:

- I will create my own website within the next 6 months.
- I will plan the content of my book and begin writing in the next two weeks (you could even set out how many pages you need to write every week to be able to finish within a year).
- In six months I'll be done with more than half of my book. Even if it's just one page more.
- I will research the best ways to self-publish my book and decide which method I am going to use within three months.
- I will save X amount every month that will go towards the publishing of my book.

Important Things To Take Note Of

Nothing is set in stone. Maybe you finish your book three months early, maybe one month you aren't able to put some money away. Maybe setting up a website was more difficult than you thought. That's okay! Remain flexible. Change up your short-term and medium-term goals, but never change your destination. Remember, if your GPS is set to California, it doesn't matter how many wrong turns you make, or which way the wind is blowing, adjust your sails and KEEP MOVING FORWARD.

I know this blog is getting really long, but if you're serious  about setting and achieving your goals, keep on  reading. Another valuable tool to include in your goal-setting strategy is a daily to-do list. This is a list of  small, easy to do, action steps that will help you achieve you short-term goals. Keep this list with you at all times and make sure it has four or five things on it that you are able to do every day.

Example Of A Daily To-Do List

1. Take ten minutes to plan what I want to accomplish tomorrow to feel like it was a productive day (do in the evening)
2. Do 20 minutes of research about how to design my own website
3. Do 20 minutes of research about how to self-publish a book
4. Tell at least one person about the book I am publishing on (,insert exact date)
5. Read at least 3 pages of self-help/personal development book

These can be things to motivate you or move you closer to your short-term goals. As long as they are easy to do every day. Once short term goals are accomplished, these might develop and change.

The most important thing to remember in this whole adventure is just get started from wherever you are, with whatever you have and DON'T GIVE UP!

Journaling to Change Your Life | Design Life

Hello and welcome to the Design Life blog, where we discuss Holistic Beauty, Personal Development and a little bit of magic.

In my last blog, I wrote about Inspiration and how to discover (or I should rather say, remember) your life purpose. Read it by clicking here: How to Find Your Inspiration. At the end of the post I shared what I believe to be the most important key to understanding yourself and, by extension, remembering what you were put on this earth to do (and how). 

The answer is Journaling. I specifically mentioned journaling in the post about inspiration, because journaling is such a powerful tool for self-discovery. When you take the time to journal regularly, you are intentionally tuning into your inner voice - something we intuitively know how to do as kids. As we grow up, however, it seems that the loud voices of the external world drown out the soft, reassuring voice within. 

 Journaling will take you deeper within yourself and you will see your life from a higher perspective. I believe this is one of the key reasons why I feel so happy with myself and my life and how I have been able to give my life meaning, which was far more successful than what I was doing before (searching outside myself for meaning and approval). Journaling helps me to breathe deeper by expressing my true thoughts and feelings, which leaves my mind free from stress and mental clutter so I can see clearly what I need to do, when I need to do it. 

But journaling can change your life in more ways than by getting to know yourself and finding your inspiration and bliss. Maybe you feel like you don't need to do that. There are other great reasons to keep a journal and write for at least a few minutes every day. 

Why You Should Start Journaling

Journaling evokes mindfulness. Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing your awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. Mindfulness is connected to happiness. When you journal, even for just a few minutes a day, it offers you the opportunity to be present in a peaceful moment, frustrations and anxieties dissolve when you learn how to focus your attention on the now. 

Journaling reduces stress. When you write about people or events that have made you feel angry or hurt (or other negative emotions), it offers a release from the heaviness of those feelings. I feel that writing about negative feelings offers more healing than talking about it with others. When I complain to someone about a negative person or event in my life, it seems to fuel my anger or sadness. Whereas when I write about what happened, how it made me feel and how I rather want to feel, it discharges the negative emotions within me. 

Journaling increases self-mastery and trust. When you commit to journaling for 15 minutes a day, every day, it's an act of discipline. When you make a promise to yourself, and you keep it, it strengthens your sense of self-control and even self-trust. 10 or 15 minutes a day is not a difficult promise to keep and the more you do it the stronger you get! Pretty soon, you will be able to exercise that self-control in other areas of your life too, such as going for a run twice a week and saying no to that second slice of cake you don't really want.

Journaling will help you see how you're growing. Personal growth is very important. One of my favorite sayings is, "If you're not growing, you're dying" (it has been quoted by too many people to honestly tell you its original source, nonetheless, it rings true!). We are human beings, it's natural for us to want to develop our skills and grow through life's challenges. We want to move forward and feel like we're making progress. Too often than we should (which is never), we compare our progress to those around us. Trust me, you are not giving yourself enough credit for what you have accomplished, and ironically, that holds you back from accomplishing more. Journaling allows you to see how you've changed over time, so you can see where you did things right, and you can see where you could do it better next time.

How to Start Journaling

Get a special notebook and pen that you will only use for journaling. Keep it next to your bed or in a place that is quiet, where you can sit and write for 15 - 20 minutes every night before going to sleep. In fact, if you want to make it really easy, download a journaling app on your phone (I use ) or create a word document on your laptop, titled Journal. 

Write the time and date every time you start journaling. Take a few deep breaths before you start writing - nothing specific, just to open up your thoughts and settle into the moment. Write about things like how you were feeling today, why you think you were feeling that way, how you reacted to situations, how you would have wanted to react and mention at least one or two good things about the day that you are grateful for. 

If it feels awkward at first to just start writing about your day, here a a few journaling prompts that you can use for the first few days: 

• Write about a memory you have from when you were younger than ten years old, or a memory from your teenage years. 
• Write about something that other people may not know about you. Why don't people know this and how do you think things would be different if they did? Is there someone specific you want to know this about you? 
• Write about your perfect day - the happiest day you can imagine. Where would you wake up and what would you do?
• Write about 10 things you really love doing. 
• Write about something someone did recently that really made you angry. Why do you think it made you angry and what did you learn? 
• Write about someone you admire.
• Write about 3 things you really like about yourself. 
• Make a list of a few of your favorite songs and what kind of memories these songs bring up in your mind. 
• Write a letter to your 18-year-old self. 

You can even set a timer for 15 minutes (or however long you want to write for) and just free-write until the timer goes off. Free-write means to just write everything that pops in your mind as it comes up while you are writing and not stop to think or wonder or edit your writing at all. If you do this, I would suggest reading what you have written afterwards and taking a few extra minutes just to think about what you wrote and how you feel after writing it out. 

As Margarita Tartakovsky wrote, "Write when you first wake up. Write as you’re getting ready for bed. Write as you’re sipping tea or listening to music. Write in a coffee shop. Write as you’re sitting in the park, breathing in the cool air. Write whenever, wherever, however you like." 

Share your thoughts in the comment section below, I look forward to hearing from you! And don't forget to subscribe to the Design Life Youtube channel for more about Holistic Beauty, Personal Development and a little bit of magic. 😊