creating my 2020 & lime
I’ve officially entered what I like to call the “if I can just get to” time of year. It’s the year where my schedule is so busy that I start looking at my calendar for the nearest break, as sort of a light at the end of the tunnel.
If I can just get to the Thanksgiving break, I’ll be fine.
If I can just get to the Christmas hols, I’ll be sailing.
Which, honestly, usually works. Have a finish line to work toward is often enough for me to put my head down and work diligently to get everything that’s on my list done, and breathe deeply at the end.
But here’s the problem: what ends up happening is that after I make it to Christmas and take that deep breath, the new year arrives, and suddenly I realize that I have no idea what I want for myself for the coming year. I never took the time to think about it, see, so I look into the dark chasm of the 365 days that lie ahead, and wonder, now what?
This year, however, as serendipity would have it, I scheduled my first retreat in 5 years for November 16th. Since I’m hosting this retreat on my own, it requires a lot of preparation; whenever I teach anything — online or otherwise — I always “take my course” myself. It’s partially to figure out where any kinks are so that I can work them out, but mostly because I want to make sure that anything I teach actually makes sense and works. And since the focus of the retreat is about clarifying mission (the legacy we want to leave here on the earth) as well as doing some vision work (the kinds of work we need to do in order to actualize our missions), it means that I’m doing some serious journaling and visualizing of work that actually means something — everything — to me. I’m setting the goals that I need to set in order to make my vision and mission a reality. And I’m mapping out the steps it will take to achieve these goals. The result is that as I prepare for this retreat, by the time I get to the Christmas holidays, I’ll have my answer to now what? already laid out in front of me.
The truth is, I’m lucky: this year my work has made it such that I’m setting aside some time to actually work the process, because I’m going to be teaching the process. But in ordinary years, I’m sad to say, it’s rare that I set aside the time to actually visualize what I want my work to loo like. Which means come the beginning of the year, I’m often scrambling to figure out what I want to for the year (or in this case, the decade) ahead, and how I’m going to achieve it.
So all this to say: we’re quickly approaching a mere 60 days before the end of the decade, and If I could give you any advice, it’s that you carve out some time for yourself to really think about what you want to lie ahead of you, what you want to create for yourself. To be clear, I’m not talking about merely creating a list of goals and things to check off a list. I mean, consider what’s important to you. What your values are, and how you’d like to live in them going forward. What kind of life you’d like to live, and the impact that you’d like to leave on your own, personal world. Spend a few hours on your couch with your journal, and ask yourself all of these questions and how you can live a life that proclaims all of these things out loud. I promise that even if don’t map it all out in granular detail right then, just by thinking of these questions on a high level, you’ll surprise yourself with some clarity on the kind of person you want to be.
(And if you’d like more structure as you go through these exercises in crafting your life, and you happen to be in and around Houston on Saturday, November 16th, consider joining me at Lime Retreat — it’s going to be a wonderful, intimate gift to give yourself to clarify your year going forward. Simply click on the button at the bottom of this post — but registration closes in days.)
“The most important part of goal-setting is that your goals are natural outgrowths of who you are and what you care about.”
registration for lime retreat closes 11:59 p.m. thursday, october 31st …. spooooky!!!
Lime Retreats is back! If you’d like the chance to hang out with me and an intimate group of light-chasers and goal-makers, consider joining me for the brand new Lime Retreats on Saturday, November 16th, for a dream-making, goal-setting, strategy-activating day retreat with good food, good music and good fun! Held in a funky art gallery in downtown Houston, the day promises to set you on your way to help make 2020 your best, most purposeful year yet. In fact, you might want to even make a weekend of it.
Click here or the button below to register — space is very limited, and there’s only 2 days left to register.
A little about the new book.