Goal Setting During the Summer
Goal setting during the summer can feel like such a challenge. It is a different season and has a different pace to the rest of the year, making it challenging to stay on track with your goals. I was thinking about my personal goal setting. It has now been 6 months and this time has had many changes and challenges that have come with it.
Goal Planning
How are you doing with you goal planning so far this year? It is halfway through the year and as I promised, I am doing my mid year review. How has this time been for you? A time of feeling motivated and productive or just waiting for the pandemic to end so that life can start again?
I have mixed feelings about the last 3 months. I had been working on my goals. I made a point to take advantage of the time where I had to stay home to work on this website as well as some of my own personal goals. I was doing a pretty good job staying on track until the end of May, where I had many distractions and situations that left me off balance.
Frustration with Your Planner
Do you ever have moments where you have frustration with your planner? Most of the time I love my planner. But I go through phases, sometimes a week or two, sometimes a month where I do not use it at all. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with other things that I end up just not using my planner. Sometimes it can feel like writing down and marking progress on things takes too much time and energy. Usually the thing that makes me most discouraged is when I look at my plan for the week and realize that everything I planned did not happen. It is those moments where I feel like using my planner is an exercise in frustration.
Get Back on Track
So how do we get back on track if we have not been using our planner and we want to do goal setting during the summer? How do we find the motivation to set our goals again? It can be hard to get motivated again but the most important thing we can do is show ourselves some self compassion. If the blank pages in your planner bother you, add photos, quotes or other things that are inspiring to fill the space.
More importantly, how do we start making our planner useful to us again? As part of my 6-month review, I have created a list of the things I have learned and my accomplishments over the last few months.
Whether these are relational, spiritual, or physical goals and accomplishments, it is important to write them down so that we remember. Sometimes these accomplishments will not fit perfectly into our goals or daily plans and not everything can be quantified. It does not make them any less important. By reflecting on our accomplishments, this may change or shift the priority of our current goals.
Start Again
If you have stopped using your planner, start again. Planners can be a useful tool, even if what I plan and what I accomplish are different. The act of planning is important. It shows me where my priorities are and can help me assess if my priorities should change. A planner is a great place to keep lists of things that maybe are not part of our goals right away but are things to be revisited later.
The planner is a great tool for assessing what is important and evaluating our priorities. It can be powerful for analyzing where our time goes. It can also show which tasks end up on your planner week after week due to procrastination or changes in priority. Even if it feels frustrating sometimes, by starting again and refocusing it can be a tool that will help us meet our goals.
Change in Your Planner
Sometimes a change in your planner is required. Perhaps the one that you have really is not working for you. As I am working on the development of my personal planner, a week ago I made significant changes to the structure and layout of my planner. I realized the format I was using was not working for me. Sometimes we just need to make a change in our planner to make it work better for us.
Anything that is holding us back from planning does not help us in the long term. Make sure our planning tool works for us.
Going into Summer
Goal setting during the summer is not always easy. It might require postponing some of our yearly goals for a few months. But if we choose a few short-term goals for the summer, it may help us to work on the things that are most important to us. We can still use the SMART goals template to help us come up with goals that will help us over the summer months.
For many of us, the summer will look different because of the pandemic. For those who enjoy traveling away from home during the summer, this may be more difficult. It may be a time where it is harder to have a plan.
It may be more useful to plan for the next 6 to 8 weeks instead of the next 3 to 6 months. This can give us time to dream a bit about what we want to accomplish during this time. I know that my SMART goals and habit goals will change over the summer. I plan to spend more time golfing and being outside and a bit less time painting and creating art.
Do Not Force Yourself into a Plan
It is important not to force yourself into a plan. It might be that your plans for the year and your usual routine changes during the summer months. That is okay. The key is to keep the habits in our lives that will help us with your personal self care. Making time for restoration and rejuvenation can help us come out of the summer feeling recharged and ready for fall and movement back to a normal schedule.
When it comes to planning, there are no rules. It is about finding ways to plan our time so that at the end of the summer, we can look back and be proud of what we have accomplished.
How About You?
I would love to hear about how you use your planner and goal setting throughout the year. Please leave a comment below or contact me directly. I hope that you can find ways to find more personal self care in your daily life.
