Lesson 8 on "Connecting the many pieces of the puzzle of you" is all about creating your personal goals and integrating them with your professional ones.
You create your personal goals by uncovering or discovering what it will take to get you what you want in life.
Your personal goals provide you with a formal planning process to choose the direction you want your life to take. Personal goals keep you focused and act as a reference point to return to when inevitable disruptions occur in your life that cause you to stray away from your life plan. Many people spend more time planning a dinner party than they do in creating and integrating their personal and professional goals.
The choices you make are based on your needs, wants, motivators, and values. Needs, wants, motivators, and values form the very foundation on which you set realistic and achievable goals, both personally and professionally.
We are going to look at ten different life-time goal categories. And, the idea is to decide where you want to spend your time right now at this time in your life.
Are you at a stage where work time is more important? Or, is it family time? Is it social time? Is it learning time? Is it spiritual time? Is it personal time? Physical time? Financial time? Development time? Or, is it something entirely different that we haven't mentioned in this list of ten?
The idea is to set up like a pie and distribute where you want to spend all your time as you are living your life today. And, consider where you have spent your time before. And, do you need to revisit that? And, where are you going to want to spend your time next?
You know, do you have to rev up your finances? Do something physically which your health and fitness are necessary and you need to exercise more, eat better? Do you need to develop things that are more growth for you? Is this a time that is more spiritual where you want to do more meditation or learn about mindfulness? Or, something to do with ethics or whatever it may be.
Look at these different times in your life and make a deal with yourself where you want to put your time. Maybe even assign a percentage to each of the lifetime categories. Where do you want to focus most of your attention and then determine which of the goal categories is something that is definitely personal for you, or is it strictly professional, or is it integration of both personal and professional?
Again, those ten lifetime categories are work time, family, social, learning time, spiritual, personal, physical, financial, development, or other time.
It's a reality of life that our professional and personal goals are not always in perfect alignment. This is not an issue for some people. But for some of us, it is. Most of us make peace with our decisions because a higher value or motivator takes precedence over the conflicting goals we have set. The critical thing is for you to know what you are doing and why!
So, line up your goals that support each other. Assess your goals that clash with each other. Then ask yourself about those clashing goals:
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Do you know why certain ones are out of alignment?
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Are you able to reconcile the disconnect between the conflict?
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What can you do to redirect your efforts?
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When will you do this?
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How will you do this?
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What happens if you don't?
This is what I want you to consider: one year from today you will be the very same person you are today except for the following.
You will be the same except for the choices you made about:
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people you chose to be with
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experiences you sought out
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food and drinks you decide to swallow
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books you selected to read
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audios or podcasts that you decided to listen to
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films and TV programs, movies you decided were important for you to watch
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music you listened to
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things you acquired
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places you went
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messages you decided to send yourself
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discussions you had with yourself and others
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relationships you formed
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what you decided not to do
You make choices on how you want to live your life and how it's all integrated together. You can create the plan that you want.
Exploring your personal and social identity in Lesson 9 is going to provide you with greater clarity around choices you make on how you want to live your life and the groups or individuals you choose to do it with.
