Positive Change : Life Planning and Goal Setting

A short brief about the course  and attached learning resources that you can download and start the next session 

Introduce the course contents what you will learn

How does this course help you after you've learned the strategies?

The process of panning funnel, in which you input all your ideas and aspirations, and gradually focus towards making them a reality.

We start with focusing on your dreams and on what you want in life, what motivates you.

You can brainstorm your dreams anytime on your own and come up with as many dreams as you can. At this stage, it does not matter if dreams are achievable, sensible or daring.

Give yourself 5 minutes to identify 5 top things that make you happy and answer the questions on the slide.

Explanation of what is PERMA Model, how it relates to our happiness and works for the life.

Values are the principles that motivate your thoughts and actions. They are your core beliefs, the things that tell you what is good or bad, right or wrong

A personal mission statement can be a potent tool because it clearly defines your goals, allows you to dismiss distractions more readily, and provides a more straightforward pathway to success.

The top 5 things that make you happy and write down brief answers to the following questions

This session is helping you to focus more  on specific areas of your life and narrows down your dreams.

The aspects of life in the Chart; Those nine elements are part of your life that you are changing and growing year by year; therefore, you need to examine, update, and renew each element to continue changing and evolving somethings new. It is great to review those nine elements we might ignore what we should make a improvement.

Now, level your aspects of life from 1 to 5 (from 1 = extremely dissatisfied to 5 = extremely satisfied). You will find the diagram from the attached file.

You draw a line across each segment that best represents each level of satisfaction, with the center representing 1 and the outer area representing 5. The end result should look almost like a spider web

In this session, you will do a short mind mapping exercise now, but you might want to spend more time on this activity later, in your own time, to come up with more ideas. Also, you might want to do mind maps for the other life aspects too.

A vision statement describes, in a few words, what your ideal life would look like in a certain aspect of your life, give yourself 5 to 10 minutes to write a vision statement for each of your 5 most important aspects of life.

Reflection time- following your reflections on what makes you happy, your values, your mission statement and your vision statement in your top 5 areas of life, I would like you to assess your dreams and to filter them down until you get a handful of dreams that you would like to prioritize for now.

Narrowing down your dreams does not mean that you will abandon the dreams that you did not choose, but only that you will put them on the back burner for now (or you might decide to abandon some of them, after all, if you realize that they are not really what you want).

[This slide refers to learning objective no. 3]

Now that you know what you want and that you have narrowed down your dreams, it is time to set goals.

Goals constitute clear destination points to aim for

Introduce what is the concept of  SMART goals?

Explain how the concept of specific can help you to reach your goal.

Understand how measurable can help you to reach the goal.

Adapt achievable concept to reach your goal.

Why does a goal need to be relevant?

Understand time-bound  that we have a timeframe to achieve a goal

The SMART model is the traditional model for setting goals, which is followed in business, and business management is the field where this concept originated from. This model is also very useful in your personal life.

Following the checklist on the handout, turn your dreams into SMARTER goals. Once this is done, write the goals down on page 2 of the handout.

( you can get the handout from the attached document)

One of the points of the SMARTER goals is ‘A’ for achievable.

In theory, you should be able to achieve any dream you want. In practice, it does not work like that. Some dreams may not be achievable at all. For example, to become the first dancer of the Bolshoi ballet (one of the most important ballet companies in the world) is not achievable if you, for example, are in your forties and have never danced in your life. You are still free to dream, of course, but your dream is unlikely to become a reality.

Unlike dreams, goals need to be achievable and there is a tool that can help you analyze your chances of achieving a goal and how to maximize these chances. This is the SWOT analysis, another tool from the world of business that can also be very useful in your personal life.

Understand the different types of goals you can set up

Another thing you can do to make sure you do not feel overwhelmed and do not try to tackle too many goals at the same time (which might put you off), is prioritizing your goals.

One way to prioritize is to ask yourself: “Which one of my goals, when achieved, will automatically help me to achieve the others?”

So, you might decide to start tackling that goal first.

Now that you have set a goal, you need to plan in order to achieve it. Planning involves breaking down a goal into steps and making these steps a part of your everyday routine.

A good planning strategy allows you to focus on taking one little step at a time, without losing sight of the big picture.

As the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu (the founder of philosophical Taoism) once said, “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

As you take one step at a time, you will reach your goal.

To draw the mind map, write your goal in the middle of the page, inside a circle, as shown on the slide. I am using here the cruise example.

Then, think of the things you need to do to achieve this goal and write each task inside circles or other shapes connected to the central goal.

After you break down your goals into lists of tasks, to keep organized, it helps to write a project catalogue.

This means that you treat each goal as a project and give it a number. For example, I have marked “Go on a 1-week Caribbean cruise in 1 year time with my family” as project 1 and I have written down the tasks related to this project underneath in the table and named them 1.1, 1.2 and so on.

Underneath, I have written another example of a goal “Learn how to paint with watercolors by March next year”. So, tasks could be 2.1 ‘search for classes’, 2.2 ‘buy materials’ etc.

This way, you will have a list of your projects and the tasks you need to do to achieve them, all in one place.

This session is tell you the step is to slot these tasks into your calendar, into a planner. It is important to do so as you want to integrate these tasks with your daily activities, so that these tasks become part of your routine.

With the tasks that you will have already slotted into your calendar, it is also useful to create daily to-do lists.

It is good practice to write down the daily list the evening before. This is so that, when you wake up in the morning, you have already visualized that list and can hit the ground running.

[This slide refers to learning objective no. 5]

why you procrastinate and what you can avoid procrastinating ?

The reasons why people procrastinate, because of

•Lack of passion or motivation.
Productivity and passion are connected. So, if you do not have the passion or motivation to do something it is more likely that you will procrastinate. If you have to do something that you do not enjoy, think about the reward for doing that task. Think about your big picture, your vision statement to achieve your ideal life.

•Fear of failure (sometimes due to perfectionism).
It is important to do things well but perfection does not exist. So, seeking perfection can delay you and even stop you from acting as you feel afraid of not being able to deliver to a certain standard.

•There are other ‘easier’ things to do (more in your comfort zone)
It is tempting to start doing the easiest tasks first and delay the toughest ones. However, as you do so, the risk is that you will put off the hard tasks indefinitely. Instead, tackle the hardest tasks first, head-on. This way, you will do these tasks when you have more energy and keep the easier tasks for later, for when you are more tired.

•Feeling overwhelmed (wondering where to start).
The solution for this is to break down projects (goals) into smaller tasks, so that you approach every project one step at a time.

•Not enough resources.
If this is the case, re-evaluate what you are doing. Is the task achievable or relevant? Come up with the resources you need first.

•No clear deadline.
If a task does not have a clear deadline, come up with one yourself. As we saw before when we talked about SMARTER goals, a time limit is necessary, so you are not tempted to drag a task forever.

Write down ad think of a time when you were completely focused and effective

In this slide, I will show you the tips to overcome procrastination.

[This slide refers to learning objective no. 6]

Now, list of things you would like to monitor, review and revise your goals and plans.

(indicating how often they would do those things), and a list of what you would review exactly when you look back at your plans and goals

This session is giving you ideas that the daily reflections and weekly reviews are for you to monitor your progress as it happens on a small scale, to make sure you are on track, to notice things and to make small and gradual adjustments

What to review, review the plans or goals that you have wrote or you may need to make a change.

Celebrate success!

Summarize and recap the learning objectives and stages of the life planning funnel.

Thank you for choosing this amazing class today, I hope that this session has been useful to you, and achieve your goals. Wish you all your dreams would come true!

If you like to extend your cross-cultural training, leadership training,  please check www.crossworknet.com

Continuous learning helps you improve your way of living and vision!