As this “new year” begins, I’m thinking about how important it is to make your plans and goals based on who you want to become not only who you've been. If you plan your year based only on what you've already done, then the year won't have enough stretches in it or dreams that ignite your excitement. If you plan it including your vision of who you're becoming, you'll build on what you've done but it will include room for where you’re dreaming you want to be.
I recently applied this wisdom to my new website design. I was humming along making plans for the new site when all of a sudden it dawned on me that the site design was too narrow. It didn’t include any room for the new areas I’m reaching into. It was more about what I'd done than who I'm becoming.
So, I went back to the drawing board and now I’m in my office sticking post-its to the wall to help me re-imagine the site in a way that holds not only what’s been but what will be.
I mentioned this insight to a graphic designer friend and she said “Yeah. I understand. For me, it was not listing that I could design PowerPoint slides on my resume anymore. I could do it and I had done it, but I didn’t want to do it anymore.” So, the solutions are sometimes simple but the insight is huge.
Who are you becoming? How can you take those inklings of what’s next and have them be part of your plan? For me it was about going back to re-imagine a website design. What is it for you?
If this season has inspired you to sit down and write down your goals and dreams and the baby steps it will take to get there, are you including the vision of who you'll be in one, two or five years from now? Of course, life will happen in the meantime, but your plans will be way more exciting to you if they include enough room to hold your ambitions. Now, my website design is not drudgery. When I focused on the author I'm becoming, the new design became more fun to imagine. It felt vital and central to manifesting my ambitions for the new year.
How are you leaving room for the buds to bloom in 2015?
Photo by Erda Estremera