Goals and values – keeping life positive!
This week, I made a decision to let a negative situation into my life. Well, it has a lot of positives as well, but the core situation is a negative. It’s not something I’m going to blog or talk about in detail, but what it has forced me to do is make sure there is a lot of positives going on, to balance it out. So I’ve been focusing on my goals and values.
When I first started coaching, I was a MESS. I was in uncontrolled debt, had just lost my job, and was failing at Uni (again). Coach made sure I focused on the manageable things first, getting rid of the easily fixed but continuously avoided issues.
Once my bills were paid and my life was seemingly on a (more) straight track, it was time to set those real, long term goals that would form and focus my choices and life. I’d never really done this before, and I can’t believe how different and more controllable my life is now.
The goals that I have now set are:
- To get (at least) a credit in both my last uni subjectst
- To eat properly and exercise at least 6 times per week
- To attend at least 1 cultural activity per week
- To read worthy literature every week (not uni related)
- To become a blogger, posting minimum of 2 posts per week.
Ok, so the last one is on track. The others are still gonna take some work. Well, uni remains to be seen – I have a lot of time on my hands right now, and no excuse to not keep up. So that one is also, seemingly on track. I’m going for a walk pretty much every day, but the eating is not so good as I’ve taken up cooking.
It was Greek independence day this week, and although I am not Greek, I made Moussaka and Greek Almond biscuits and they were AMAZING. So I’ve been eating that all week. BAD. But let’s be honest, my eating habits are a lifetime battle, so I’m really going to have to work on them harder. And perhaps I can count this as a cultural experience??? : )
Last week I went to the Art Gallery of NSW which was fantastic. I didn’t go to the Archibald – I ran out of time! - but will go and do that in the next couple of weeks. I saw Art Express, which was brilliant – I find it so amazing how talented 17 and 18 year old artists can be!! The best was a, well I guess it was a sculpture, where the student had taken a set of Funk and Wagnell’s encyclopedia’s and either folded the pages or cut into the pages in a heap of different ways, to represent the changing face of how we obtain and use information. It was brilliant (although I do struggle with books being damaged – I definately am not the “fold the corner to mark the page” type!!)
And finally there’s my literature – well I’ve not got into this one at all, focusing on reading my Greek tragedies for uni. So I really need to devote at least an hour a week to reading something non-uni related. Will just have to decide what book it will be.
I’m also focusing on my life values. They are:
- Friendship
- Inspire
- Passionate
- Satisfied
- Rule
- Spark
I like this list – it came about through a word elimination activity given to me by Coach. And it makes sense. My friends are SO important to me, and their friendship (and that of my Mum too), is what keeps my head above water. I’m constantly looking for passion and satisfaction in life, and now I have clear goals, hopefully it will be easier to find these! I do better with things and people and activities for which I feel a spark, and I work well when there are rules to guide and follow. And best of all in that list, is I think it really is my aim to inspire, rather than to teach or educate.
So now I have my goals and values , I feel that within my life I am actually serving a purpose. This was something I felt I lacked for a long time, but I didn’t realise that I was in control of setting that purpose. Now it’s there, and I’ve just got to keep working on fulfilling them all!
