Equipping young women professionals with young families to find fulfillment, contentment and joy as mothers and home makers without losing sight of who they are as women.

Volume 09, Issue 01: Reflections and Intentions

There's nothing like the quiet time of thinking, pondering and reflecting over how it's been. Most of us spend part of the month of December and the beginning of January reflecting over the past year and pondering over how we can do better in the coming year, what we can do differently, how we can show up better in life.

We review the past year and ponder over and note things like;

⁃ What we are most grateful for from the past year

⁃ How we feel about the past year in overall

⁃ The positive changes we saw in ourselves the past year, how we have grown as individuals and the things we now do better than we did before.

⁃ The lessons we learnt in the past year. One of the things I learnt is that it's okay to say "This is not working for me" and change course.

⁃ Our major accomplishments in the past year. One of my major accomplishments was settling the matter on my bed time, eating hours, waking up early and daily quiet time.

⁃ The goals we wanted to achieve but didn't go as planned. One of the things I flopped in is showing up on time for things on my radar.

⁃ Whether we still feel passionate about those goals and what we can do differently in the new year to accomplish them.

⁃ What is holding us back from the life we envision - whether it's time management, self-doubt, procrastination, perfectionism or laziness.

We also ponder over the things we did in the past year that we want to continue doing. We consider the things that didn't do us justice that we want to stop doing. We think of the things we want to start doing in the new year to take us further than we have come thus far in our journey.

I thought of relatives I didn't visit or call enough and scheduled trips and phone calls to make on my calendar in the new year. I reworked the allowance system for my kids so that they no longer earn a free allowance but earn it by fulfilling certain obligations. I created a digital calendar blocking system for myself with alerts and reminders to help me show up better. I thought of the important things we didn't get to do or did poorly as a family and put them on the calendar to make sure we do them in the new year.

This is also the time we think about our intentions for the new year and get inspiration for what we want to focus on in the new year. We pick our theme or word for the year that will revolutionize our every day life in the year. We lay out the things we want to be intentional about in the new year. A one word theme does a better job than new year resolutions. It narrows our focus and brings clarity and simplicity into our lives. I will share my learnings on one word theme in a future post.

We then choose a few goal categories that we want to focus on in the year. The categories may range from health, mind, career, personal development, financial, creativity, relationships, organization, spiritual, skill building, etc. After we select somewhere between 3 and 8 goal categories, or more depending on our level of ambition, we brainstorm the goals we want to pursue for each.

We then refine our brainstormed goals into smart goals. Smart goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound. Here, we state exactly what needs to be done for each goal. We state how each goal will be measured to track progress. We ensure to set goals that are attainable - not too challenging or overwhelming. We state the relevance of each goal in the vision we have for our lives so we don't end up with goals that don't align with what we want to do in life. And finally, we state exactly when each goal needs to be met by. We set the target date or state the time in which we do the goal (daily, weekly, monthly, etc).

We then proceed to create simple action plans and steps, and lay out the tools and support we will need to make it happen for each goal. We then create tasks from the action plans, and put the tasks on our daily/weekly/monthly planner. After this we are good to go. It's action time. We set the ball in motion, do our best, review our goals monthly and celebrate wins, and get back on track when we fall behind.

Let's have an amazing year.

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi