Goal Planning Hello Day Style

December 14, 2020

It’s that exciting time of your again where we are getting excited about Christmas AND super excited about using a brand new, wonderfully empty & unused Hello Day Planner that’s just bursting with possibility and opportunities for the year ahead :)

We are so pleased to see all of the wonderful images, posts, messages and reviews which have been coming in over the last few weeks as people have received their new planners. And these are all the more sweet after the delay and stress caused by Covid this year.

It made us think about the fresh start of 2021 and how we can plan to make the best possible start to the new year.

In our planners we provide some tools to help us think about our yearly goals and then break them down into smaller goals and tasks which we can work towards on a daily basis. But we thought it would be really useful to put a blog together which encourages us all to plan big - to look at the bigger picture and then work backwards so that this year, when we have finished setting up our planners for January, we feel really pumped for starting 2021 with real purpose and enthusiasm - to know that we’re going into this year with a real plan and the will to achieve it!

So this is planning for 2021 Hello Day Style!! We hope you enjoy it.

Plan in Peace 

Plan for some time alone to do this properly. Don’t underestimate the benefit of some real quality me time to allow you to enjoy your planning and get the most of it. Set some time when you can be alone, phone off, distraction-free, to allow you to plan in peace.

 

 

Think Big

Spend some time dreaming about the next few years. Why not use our ‘My Next Decade’ printable and really think forward into your future. What do you want? Where do you want to be? Be honest with yourself and don’t limit your goals. This printable encourages you to think about where you want to be in 10 years, 5 years and 1-2 years. Starting with 10 years and working backwards allows you get a good idea of where you will want to be in 1-2 years if you're really going to get there.

 

Bring Your Focus Closer

Now that you know where you would ideally like to be in 1-2 years, you can start to think about more tangible goals that will get you there - goals that you can put into your planner. In Hello Day planners we give space for 4 main goals in a year. These goals can be independent, in different areas of your life, or they themselves can be sub-goals of a single, larger goal, it really is up to you and depends on your focus. Are they professional goals, fitness goals, social goals, romantic goals. It doesn’t matter - your goals are just your targets which will have you on the right path to be the you you want to be in your future. Have a bit of a brainstorm about what those goals might be. Don’t focus on the details but what they might look like generally, and then write them down in a journal or notebook.

 

 

Don’t Just Plan it - See it!

Now you’re ready to start putting your goals into your planner. But before you do, we really encourage you to really bring your goals to life with the aide of a vision board. This last 2 years we have sent vision boards as free gifts to all customers who preordered a planner. If you didn’t get one, you can download a free version here. Also, we recently wrote a how blog on the benefits of a vision board, so we encourage you to read it before you create yours, but suffice to say that creating ons is FUN!! It really gets you excited about your goals and brings them to life. That’s only a minor part of it though - they really do help you to turn your dreams into reality. I can speak to that personally - we created a vision board this year and I’m amazed at how much has actually come true, even way before we imagined it would. What have you got to lose?

 

Use your Planner - Break Down your Goals

Now you have your goals clear in your mind, you can put them into your Yearly Goal Planning Pages of your planner. You should already have a good idea of what your goals look like now, but even if they still seem dauntingly large and scary, don’t worry because you’re about to start breaking them down into quarterly milestones, monthly goals, weekly tasks and daily To Dos. 

Follow the guidance in these pages and before you know it, you're on a realistic, achievable path to the destination you have chosen. Seems too easy? Let's look at an example below: 

Let's say you're someone who doesn't consider themselves a runner, but really wants to be. And let's say a friend tells you they are planning on running a half marathon next year for charity and asks if you want to join in? A half marathon??!! Right now it may seem totally unrealistic. You may laugh at the idea, thinking how you feel out of breath just running the shopping into the house in the rain!! But by breaking this mammoth goal down into realistic milestones and then monthly goals, all of a sudden it seems far less daunting and much more achievable. Take a look and see what you think:  

                                    

 

 

 

Now doesn't that seem totally achievable over the course of the year? You've gone from a daunting yearly goal to your first month planned out and a main focus for the first week ahead to get you started. Does it even make you want to give it a go? If so, why not set yourself that very goal?

Whatever your dreams, whatever your goals for the next 10, 5 or 2 years, follow the steps above and just see where your imagination takes you. I've used the same approach myself when deciding to move away from Interior Design and planning to start Hello Day. Nothing ever happens exactly as we picture it, and our goals may change along the way, but aiming high and planning to succeed gives us the best chance of having a wonderful journey, learning and growing as we go. 

I hope the above approach can help some of you to get off to a great start in 2021.

 

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