Goals and resolutions and to-do lists, oh my!

Ben loves goals, Brooke doesn’t. Will they be able to find a way around this and continue in life, love and podcasts? You’ll have to listen to find out!

Like florals to spring are goals and New Year’s resolutions to the end of the year. Today Brooke and Ben talk about their recent discovery that Ben is way more goal oriented than Brooke. Like a lot more. The nature of Ben’s work is project-based, with distinct start and end dates - he’s used to end-points and moving on to the next thing, both professionally and personally. Whether it’s learning a new song on the guitar or painting the front fence, Ben feels like his life is like this, and Brooke feels like hers is not.

Brooke’s natural tendency is not to be goal-oriented at all. While she does need structure and to-do lists to tame her “panster” ways, goals actually make her feel claustrophobic. As soon as a goal is down on paper, no matter how SMART it is, she instantly wants to rebel against it, a habit that’s potentially formed from years of feeling shame around not finishing things that she started. She does semi-regularly sit down and partake in a big-picture brain dump or epic mind-map making session, but even those will be forgotten about and discovered a year later (often, interestingly, with many of the things having taken place, even without the piece of paper in sight!). Unsurprisingly, Brooke is also not a fan of New Year’s resolutions, but more about the actions and the doing.

However, both Brooke and Ben agree that one of the downsides of not setting goals is not celebrating success enough. It’s a work in progress for them - actually stopping to take it in, reflect on what you’ve done and celebrate how far you’ve come, and what you’ve achieved. This also ties back to mindfulness for Brooke, who can see that being more present allows her to really pause and soak in the details of things.

The key takeaway for this week? It’s ok to not be a goal setter, but maybe try being a little more mindful of what it is you’re working towards. And maybe try experimenting with thinking of a couple of short, medium and long-term goals and writing them down in the Notes app in your phone (Ben’s location of choice). Think about something that extends you personally or professionally, or maybe make a mindmap or do a brain dump, and then look at the end game. What is it that you’re working towards? Once it’s time to turn that bullet point into a satisfying tick, take a moment (or a glass of something bubbly) to celebrate your success.

Are you a goal-setter? If so, tell us how you do it, we’d love to hear. Also if anyone really knows what SMART stands for, feel free to get in touch.

To read more, head over to http://slowyourhome.com/220/ for all the links and resources mentioned, as well as the full blog post.

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