We spent New Year's Day working on this year's Red Book, our wishes, dreams, vision for 2009. Then we set it aside for a couple weeks to let it 'furgle' (furgling is a Steve term for letting something simmer). Since it's set a bit and we're still happy (and excited) about what we've drafted, now it's time to get started turning our dreams into reality. Today we're sitting down with the Red Book and beginning to plan. For us this means taking each item we want to accomplish (the wishes and dreams) and breaking them down into what does Steve need to do and what do I need to do to make that item happen.
Here's an example. One of our aspriations for this year -is to get into the best physical shape of our lives (incredibly brave of me to put that into print, isn't it?!). We're mid 40's and now is the time to do it. This is a big and exciting goal, but left by itself it won't turn into reality. Very simplistically, it needs to be surrounded by lots of little goals that added together deliver the big and exciting goal. Each little goal baby steps you closer and closer to the big one. You also get a sense of achievement with every little goal you accomplish, knowing that you're one step closer and you're making progress on the big one.
So how do we get to 'best physical shape of our lives'? Some of it we've already started on our sailing trip. Steve has lost 30-40 pounds, I've lost an undisclosed amount. We're both more active and flexible than we've been in years. The foundation is in place with last year's goals. Now we have to do something that will take us to the next level. In our plan we want to spend a bit of time in England and Europe next year, we want to start the hunt for a place in Italy and we've been talking about doing a bicycle trip for a few years now so we're going to combine those with the goal of getting into great physical shape into a bike trip around Italy - on a tandem!
So how do we turn that into reality? Well, we need to be in England (buy tickets - K), we need to have a route (plan the route - S), we need train tickets to get the bike to Italy (research trains and buy tickets - K), we need to get in shape so we can spend all that time on a bike (work up to 25 miles per day on bikes - S&K), need a tandem (research and narrow selection - K, try and make final selection - S&K), book first night hotel and find list of potential B&Bs to stay at along the way (research, make reservation - S). Those are just a few of the steps which get us to achieving that goal.
For each goal we do this, then we each add our tasks to our individual to-do lists and then begin working on them. This may seem like common sense or what you read in all the books, but there are some things that make this approach different for us. We do it together at a time of year when it is exciting to set goals, we break what we want to do into small steps that fit onto the daily to-do lists, they're little so they get done. We get together to review the list and our progress every month or so which refocuses us on what we want to do (versus what those who may not have our interests at heart want us to do), and we check off what we've accomplished along the way which gives us the opportunity for a boost, "We're really making good progress on this one, aren't we?" or to infuse a bit more effort, "Whoops, haven't made much progress on that one, we need to..." And it is fun to get together once a month and go over our lists and see how much closer we are to doing the things we want to do! It keeps us working together on where we want to get to rather than drifting off in different directions. And the final thing that makes it different is most of the things we want to accomplish are really fun and exciting (we try to stay away from ho-hum goals), we focus on things that make us say, "Yes! It would be so cool if we could do that!!!"
That's how we take something huge and make into something we get done, year on year - great big wishes to reality and how we have fun with it along the way.
Here's an example. One of our aspriations for this year -is to get into the best physical shape of our lives (incredibly brave of me to put that into print, isn't it?!). We're mid 40's and now is the time to do it. This is a big and exciting goal, but left by itself it won't turn into reality. Very simplistically, it needs to be surrounded by lots of little goals that added together deliver the big and exciting goal. Each little goal baby steps you closer and closer to the big one. You also get a sense of achievement with every little goal you accomplish, knowing that you're one step closer and you're making progress on the big one.
So how do we get to 'best physical shape of our lives'? Some of it we've already started on our sailing trip. Steve has lost 30-40 pounds, I've lost an undisclosed amount. We're both more active and flexible than we've been in years. The foundation is in place with last year's goals. Now we have to do something that will take us to the next level. In our plan we want to spend a bit of time in England and Europe next year, we want to start the hunt for a place in Italy and we've been talking about doing a bicycle trip for a few years now so we're going to combine those with the goal of getting into great physical shape into a bike trip around Italy - on a tandem!
So how do we turn that into reality? Well, we need to be in England (buy tickets - K), we need to have a route (plan the route - S), we need train tickets to get the bike to Italy (research trains and buy tickets - K), we need to get in shape so we can spend all that time on a bike (work up to 25 miles per day on bikes - S&K), need a tandem (research and narrow selection - K, try and make final selection - S&K), book first night hotel and find list of potential B&Bs to stay at along the way (research, make reservation - S). Those are just a few of the steps which get us to achieving that goal.
For each goal we do this, then we each add our tasks to our individual to-do lists and then begin working on them. This may seem like common sense or what you read in all the books, but there are some things that make this approach different for us. We do it together at a time of year when it is exciting to set goals, we break what we want to do into small steps that fit onto the daily to-do lists, they're little so they get done. We get together to review the list and our progress every month or so which refocuses us on what we want to do (versus what those who may not have our interests at heart want us to do), and we check off what we've accomplished along the way which gives us the opportunity for a boost, "We're really making good progress on this one, aren't we?" or to infuse a bit more effort, "Whoops, haven't made much progress on that one, we need to..." And it is fun to get together once a month and go over our lists and see how much closer we are to doing the things we want to do! It keeps us working together on where we want to get to rather than drifting off in different directions. And the final thing that makes it different is most of the things we want to accomplish are really fun and exciting (we try to stay away from ho-hum goals), we focus on things that make us say, "Yes! It would be so cool if we could do that!!!"
That's how we take something huge and make into something we get done, year on year - great big wishes to reality and how we have fun with it along the way.
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