Goal Setting

One of the last exercises was retrospection, and originally, I planned to include some parts about exploring yourself next. Due to the unexpected hiatus, I will skip these, and today's topic is about planning and setting goals.

Traditionally, New Year is the time for setting goals that are forgotten by the end of January – the classical New year resolutions. Obviously, these are useless and a source for frustration, and that is not what I have in mind.
However, I believe that it is important to reorient yourself in your life every now and again, and the change of the year is one possible time for that. Reorientation requires you to look back as a first step – what has happened, what have you achieved? Where are you standing now? The exercise in retrospection is one possibility for that. This week's exercise is the second step: looking into your future.

Take something to write and go to a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Light a candle and some incense, if you want to. Then, think about important topics or areas of your life. Restrict yourself to three or four areas if possible. For me, they would be something like family and friends, religion, work and writing.
For each of these categories, look into the future. If everything continues the way it is now, where will you be? What will happen, in the next months, the next year, the next five or ten years? Is that what you want to happen? If yes, then fine: just move on to the next topic.
If not, imagine your future as you want it to be, in five or ten years. Imagine it vividly. Then, think: what can you do to move your life in that direction? What should happen over the next year? What steps can you take now to make it happen? Do not start with good intentions. Start with a vision of your future – then make plans that lead to that future.
Go through all the important areas of your life, and develop a vision for each of them. It might be that you want to change your life everywhere – just be aware that you do not have to change everything at once and that it might be easier to focus on one thing at a time.
If you are familiar with a divination system such as tarot cards, it might be helpful to support this exercise with some divination.
Write your visions and your plans down. Place them on your altar, if you have one. If you want to, create a picture of some kind – a drawing, a collage or whatever you like. Keep your visions and plans in sight, so you will have your future in sight.

I am speaking of a plan in a very general sense here. It can be as simple as “Exercise more” or as detailed as “Getting a gym membership for the winter months, running during the summer month, check with friends who might join me, set up a calender for documenting my training”. If you are interested in more detailed and thorough planning,there are a number of possibilities. Dianne Sylvan has described an interesting concept of several nested circles – daily, weekly, monthly and yearlong actions to achieve your goals - that sounds interesting to me. Use a planning system as simple or detailed as you need. But know where you want to go!