Re-evaluating, Rethinking, Redirecting: Goal Setting

It's been awhile since I posted.  I've been busy learning to balance life: sleep, juicing, thesis work, time w/K, shopping, yoga, life practices, learning about juices, facebook, browsing blogs.  Mainly, the struggle has been sleep - I've been trying to harness the energy from juicing and leverage it in a correct way in accordance with sleep to create more time and energy.  Learning how to do so has shortened my time available.

I have also realized that I made a serious error in judgement. David Wolfe, in The Sunfood Diet Success System, writes:

Consider the following ratio: 

Planning to action = 1:5 (one day of planning is worth five days of action)

Prevention to recovery = 1:5 (one day of prevention is worth five days of recovery)

The more you plan, the more effective your plans will become, and the more you can get done in less time.  The more you prevent, the healthier you become, and the less time you need to ever spend on recovery. 

I did one day of planning early on, and then never renewed it.  I never did any days of prevention.  What happened was personal and interpersonal crises struck.  Then I was stuck in recovery mode.  I never renewed my planning, so I got stuck in permanent recovery mode.  It is time now to change that.

I have decided to start mapping and planning out my days. I've filled my calendar completely up until Thursday, including demarcating free/play time slots, sleep, shower, etc.  When I fall behind or miss something, it is a lesson in acceptance and softening.  When I make my slots, I have achieved a goal, no matter how small and can feel grateful to myself for my success.

One of these daily goals is to spend 30 minutes on binaural meditation for the next 14 days.  Another is to spend 60 minutes "sharpening the saw," as Steven Covey puts it.  For me, this means evaluating my goals, reading literature that will help me progress in my goals, and writing down new goals.  One hour of mandatory planning each day.  Tonight I read the chapter on goals from David Wolfe's book, and now I'm writing down my goals here in my blog.

When you take action and actually write down your goals and review them regularly, you dive into a strong current which will carry you to distant places.  Unseen forces will come to your aid.

Daily Goals:

• Attend a yoga class 6 days out of the week
• Spend 1 hr each day Sharpening the Saw
• Spend 30 minutes each day on binaural meditation (until Feb. 14th)
• Juice 4L per day
• Full life practices for 14 out of 14 days.

Quarterly Goals:

• Succeed fantastically at my juice feast
• Finish all three projects of my thesis by March 18th

Yearly Goals:

• Optimize my health and well-being to the best of my ability
• Create and implement a short-term plan for financial stability over the next 1-2 years
• Create a long-term plan for for financial success
• Create a long-term plan to pursue my interest in neuroscience and spirituality
• Evaluate my long-term goals, and develop new long-term goals

To succeed at the Quarterly and Yearly goals I must create an action plan.  Tomorrow night, I will go through Brian Tracy's 12 steps from his book Maximum Achievement (reprinted in David Wolfe's book):

1. Develop an intense desire to achieve your goals.
2. Develop a strong belief in your goals.
3. Write your goals down.
4. Determine how you will benefit from achieving your goals.
5. Analyze your starting point.
6. Set deadlines to achieve your goals.
7. Identify the obstacles that stand in your way.
8. Identify the additional knowledge or information you will require.
9. Identify the people whose cooperation you will require.
10. Make a plan to achieve your goals.
11. Visualize the achievement of your goals.
12. Persist until your goals are achieved.

I will learn to do the following:

Think about your goals continuously.  When your goals are clear, all the laws of the universe conspire in yoru favor to help you.  Whenever you feel things are going badly, think about your goals! Uplift yourself by thinking about, visualizing, and feeling your goals!

          To achieve yoru goals, you must become the type of person who can achieve those goals.

 ...

You can learn everything you need to know to accomplish your goals along the way to their achievement.  The key is to keep taking action.  Action attracts the knowledge you require and makes all things possible.

...

It is the possibility of having a dream come true which makes life most Interesting!  Get excited about your goals. Get excited about waking up in the morning! Become an irresistible force of Nature moving rapidly towards each set goal. 

Final Action Steps, recommended by David Wolfe: 

1. Set a health goal to continuously act upon the information contained within his book.  Record this goal in my journal blog.  For me, this is juice feasting, and then my post-feast health and wellness plan.
2. In my journal blog, write down 100 goals that I want to attain within the next year.  Review them daily.
3. Take my top 5 yearly goals.  For each goal write a sentence fulfilling each one of the 12 steps for goal achievement outlined by Brian Tracy above.
4. Continuously write down additional yearly goals and long-term goals in my blog
5. Check off each goal as I achieve it.

Final goal of the night:

• Implement the above action steps, starting immediately.

I have already started on this process with this post, and will continue it daily.