January is often a time we reflect on the year that passed and think about what we want to accomplish in the coming year. Sometimes I look back and feel like I crushed it. Other years, not so much.

It’s All a Blur

One thing I’ve learned about being a professional mom over the last decade is if you are not intentional about where you want to go in life, the weeks and months whiz by. It’s a flurry of cleaning, grocery shopping, emails, laundry, holidays, school projects, birthday parties, conference calls, swim class…you get the gist! 

Let’s be honest, the list will never end because our lives as working moms are busy.  If we are not careful, we get stuck in the minutiae of daily life and miss out on greater fulfillment.  We have to be intentional about our time and how we spend it.

Know Where You Are Going

Do you have a specific set of goals for the next 3 months, year or five years? Maybe you don’t because you feel content with your current life.  But, are you really? Are there small things that you’d like to improve upon or learn?

Alternatively, you may feel too busy or overwhelmed to set goals. But, whether we realize it consciously or not, we crave progress, growth and momentum towards something.  Goals keep us interested and inspired. So, rather than more overwhelm, goals could give you a purpose.

The Five Steps

As you prepare for the coming year, here are five steps you can take to living more intentionally, which will make you much happier in the long run. (Trust me!)

Identify a big goal that you have right now.  

Think big! Be brave! Note that “big” is absolutely relative. It might be cleaning out the hall closet (finally) or finding an EVP position in your industry.  Do you want to start a side hustle, get that certification or pay off debt? Pick something that feels like a stretch. For you go getters, feel free to pick a few goals. I’m not here to hold you back, sis!  

Go deeper and find your why. 

Now, take your goal and ask yourself why you want to accomplish this goal.  Then, take your answer and ask yourself why you want that. Do this six times. It may feel hard, but keep going. You may be very surprised to find out what you truly want. Be sure to listen to the podcast for an example of when I did this exercise. Click here to download free Goal Setting and Ultimate Why Worksheets to help you with this.

Use your goal’s ultimate why as fuel to propel you towards your goal. 

It’s simple. You want to make progress on your goal, but you feel buried in daily life. REMEMBER YOUR ULTIMATE WHY!  You will be much more motivated to take the steps to achieve it because you identified your true motivation.

Identify the steps you need to accomplish the goal.

Next, brainstorm the steps you’ll need to take to get to your goal and write them down. If you love online task programs like Asana or Trello, then go for it. But, you don’t need to get all fancy.  Put it in the Notes app on your phone, write it down in a journal, a piece of paper, whatever. (But, don’t lose it!) This an important step. You won’t be able to “get a new job” in one day. You have to sign up for the job board, create a job search alert in LinkedIn, update your resume, etc.   Be super detailed.  We are trying to create steps that you can do in bite size pieces when you have time. Again, download my free Goal Setting and Ultimate Why Worksheets here.

Do the things. 

Now, in the morning or when you’re planning your week or just whenever you have a break, ask what you can do that day from your list and start crossing those tasks off, baby.  (Am I the only one that loves crossing tasks off a physical to-do list?  Ooh, just saying it out loud makes me all warm and fuzzy.)  You can also schedule them in your planner, your online task app or calendar software…whatever works for you.  But, schedule them and then do the things.   

Summary

Ok, so those are steps.  Easy peasy.  To recap, you’re not going anywhere and time is flying by. You identify a goal.  Ask yourself seven times why you want that goal.  Use that ultimate why to propel you to action.  List all the known steps toward that goal.  And you tackle them babies one after another.  If you get sidetracked, you remember your why.  Boom.  You win.

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