Quantum Happiness Series- Multiplying Mari-goals

“Nothing builds confidence like accomplishment.”
—Thomas Carlyle.

During part one of this series, you have found inspiration, developed healthy habits, set clear goals, mapped out strategy, and taken control of your time and energy. If not, now is the time to review your goal statement, prioritize your daily tasks, and organize your time with your goals in mind.

Are your priorities reflected in how you spend your time? If not, why not?
What is the next step in reaching each of your 6-month benchmarks? If you don’t know, now is the time to decide.
What chores have you automated, delegated, or deleted? Which ones still need attention?
Are you eating and sleeping well? If not, why not?
Are you exercising regularly? If not, why not?

All these items are critical to keeping the ennui vine from slipping into untended corners of our goal garden, choking our mari-goals, and reeking of despair.

Endless evaluation

We must constantly evaluate what’s taking our time and its effect on our everyday lives. Maybe you stopped spending hours every day on social media, but you’re now spending more time than necessary talking on the phone or texting with a friend, both forms of procrastination, passive sources of stress, and fertile ground for ennui to take root.

If your initial response is, “I don’t have time to do it again,” it’s more important than ever to … DO IT AGAIN! Chances are you’re responding to the tyranny of the urgent and ignoring what’s important, relegating your goals to the back burner.

Unless we vigilantly tend to our goal garden, the weeds of urgency, procrastination, and conflict will creep into those neglected corners of our consciousness and create space for the dreaded, twining vine of ennui. So, evaluate the last week of your life and be honest about how much progress you’ve made and what is really holding back those bright, beautiful blooms in your goal garden.

Growing goals

While having goals is key to breaking free of ennui, we must remember that life has a tendency to change our plans. In fact, the only thing we can be sure of in life is that things will change. So, we must be flexible.

I originally planned to prepare this course material in three weeks. However, when I started writing, the content started to grow. The more I wrote, the bigger it got and the more time it took. If I had been determined to finish in three weeks, I would have been setting myself up for disappointment and not been fair to the work itself. So, I relaxed and committed to writing three to five pages per day for as long as it took.

In the end, the project is better, more successful, and more rewarding than I had anticipated. In fact, during the writing process, I found inspiration for another book, yet another sprout in my goal garden.

Multiplying mari-goals

Whether your goals include a new job, travel, art, writing, or something else, the fastest way to reach them and conquer those creeping tentacles of ennui is through finding inspiration, communicating your intentions to yourself and others, and getting organized.

Maybe you’ve been so successful that you’ve found inspiration in multiple areas of your life. I hope you’ve developed personal goals, business goals, family goals, household goals. Many, many, mari-goals!

Remember, goals are like flowers in a garden. When planted and tended with care, they multiply. So, set a timeline for each one, organize and prioritize them in order of importance to you (not anyone else) and get busy working those A’s off. I often post my goal statements on the refrigerator where I see them multiple times a day. I have household, professional, personal, and family goals. While your goals may be very different than mine, the process remains the same:

Post them where you see them often. (Include photos if possible.)
Make others aware of your intentions.
Set markers along the way.
Celebrate small accomplishments
Enjoy the process.

Remember these are your goals, not your spouse’s, not your children’s, not your boss’s. This is about what you want out of life, what you want to accomplish as an individual.

By living our lives to the fullest and pursuing our own ambitions, we become happier, more engaged spouses, parents, and employees. So, don’t be shy about discovering interests and passions that have been buried by redundant tasks and responsibility. Chances are your family will be more than supportive and may even join you in your quest.

Problem with plastic

One of my personal goals has long been to avoid single use plastics. I started with carryout plates and cups, moved on to shopping bags, and now straws have been eliminated from our daily lives.

Over the years, my family has gotten on board and helped me pick up plastic from the roadside. James has shamed litterbugs into taking their trash back and disposing of it properly, and as a family we proudly take responsibility for our plastic consumption and disposal.

Multiplying Mari-Goals

Engagement exercise 1:

Revisit and evaluate your earlier goal statement.

Which goals are progressing as planned?
Which ones are not progressing in a timely manner? Why not?
Which areas still need work?
Which areas might need to be revisited and revised?

If something is not working or not going as planned, don't ignore it. Instead evaluate it without emotion to determine the problem and then brainstorm solutions. Goals often need to be revised since we cannot see into the future and, therefore, can't determine exactly how long things will take or what obstacles we may encounter along the way.

Engagement exercise 2:

Revise and/or update your goal statements to accurately reflect your current goals. Sample on next page.

My Mari-Goals (revisited)

Print (or plant 😊) as many as needed

Goal:

Short term benchmarks: 6 months or less

Mid Term benchmarks: 6 months - 2years

Long Term benchmarks: 2 years – 5+ years

This has been an excerpt from the Everyday Vacay e-series.

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