I wanted to share some ideas of planning with you and tell you how to change your dreams to actual goals.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in with dreaming, following your intuition and listening your gut feeling. Every time I have done that, the results are amazing and whenever I ignore my inner guidance, I end up with difficult client, complicated situation or just feeling exhausted, wrong, sad and overwhelmed.
But besides that inner compass, you need to have some structure in your actions and what’s even more important, you need to be clear of where you are going. It’s easy to forget the planning and just go with flow, ending up nowhere.
Destination
When you are heading to a physical location, to your friends house, to a bar, to school, to an appointment, what will you do first? You check the address and then you plan your route. It doesn’t matter if it’s on navigator or in your mind but you do that. You know where you are going and you figure out how to get there, not to mention how long it takes. Same goes with your dreams.
Know where you are going
You need to know where you are going, what are you trying to achieve. If that’s unclear to you, how will you even know when or if you arrive in the right destination? See, you need to be very clear about where you are going. Focus on your goal, make it as clear as possible and make sure you know how it looks like when it’s accomplished.
For example, if you want to grow your business, your goal cannot be “grow my business” as that’s too vague to measure. Having vague goals ends up you feeling disapointed as there is no achievement point, the goal is never ready, done or accomplished. “I want to have two more clients per month” is achievable goal. It’s clear, measurable and you absolutely know when you have succeeded. See the difference?
How success looks like?
To be able to feel that you have achieved something, you need to know how success looks like. Visualize it, write it down, make a list, whatever works for you but make it clear for yourself. Two clients more per month, 1K€ more income per month, 1 hour a day for selfcare, writing the Morning Pages every day. You can pick any goal you want, just make sure it’s clear.
Give it a date
The second part is to give it a date. An actual deadline to make sure that you are committed to do it. Otherwise you might skip doing the action and just wait that something mystically happens. Set a goal and give it a date when it has to be completed. Now you are ready. After these steps you only have to break the goal down to smaller pieces and steps to follow, put those steps on the timeline and well, do it.
Enjoy the journey
Let’s get back to heading to your friend’s house. You know it will take some time and depending on the route you picked, some turning points, points where you have to slow down and points when you can speed up. But eventually, you will get there. Sometimes something happens in between. There might be an accident that slows you down or your bike might broke, bus is not on time or you realise that you forgot your phone and you have to go back to get it. Any of these things doesn’t mean that you will not end up where you were going, it just takes a bit longer than you estimated.
Remember that when you set your goals. Be prepared to face some obstacles but never lose faith to accomplish the goal eventually. Sometimes the journey even ends up being more important than the goal itself, so enjoy the ride.
Planning the steps
What comes to planning the actual steps to reach your goal, I wanted to share my routines to inspire you to find yours. I do a lot of different kind of planning as having two companies and employees makes the situation a bit complicated. Because of all these different companies, social media channels, people and tasks, I prefer having two different types of plans and goals. The first part is digital, we use Google Calendar, Asana and Slack to be able to communicate and share the plans, goals and tasks. That’s the easiest way when you have more than one person involved and different kind of projects going on all the time.
The second part is my personal planning and goal setting. I use bullet journal for that and I highly emphasise the personal aspect of using it. The reason I chose bullet journal over paper calendar or any other dated notebook is that I can do what I want or need in my own order and way. With bujo I’m not restricted on someone else’s logic or order but I can create my own.
How do I plan my day and week?
My Aura notenook contains both long-term goal setting as lists, mood boards, visual treasure maps and motivational quotes and the daily tasks and to do -lists. I also journal freely when I feel the urge for that and don’t really care if I wrote on every day or in chronological order whatsoever. I do it when it feels right.
What I do on regular basis is the weekly spread. That’s my main tool for organising everything. I make it every Sunday or Monday depending a bit on the circumstances and I have developed it to be very functional and simple. With Aura I don’t even need that much decorations as all the spreads are already beautiful with the variating color gradients. Sometimes I add stickers, quotes or photos but that’s not the main point of the weekly spread. It’s a tool, not an artwork.
I made you a small video of making one weekly spread, hope you enjoy it! You can watch the video below.
As you can see, it’s really simple. On the left side I write down all the appointments or other things that have an actual date, time or deadline. On the right side I have my to do -list which I couldn’t unfortunately share with you as it contains some confidential client info but it’s basically just a bulleted list. When something is done, I cross it over and if something is not completed in a week, I will just casually move it to the next weeks list when I’m drawing the next weekly spread.
Recently I started to use 2 columns to do -list instead of one and the first one is for the things moved from last week and the right one is for the new ones. That helps me even more to get a clear, complete view on what’s happening or what needs to be done first.
Let’s make some magic!
What I have on weekly spread are already smaller pieces of bigger goals. The big picture goal setting is done on different pages and with wider view on things I want to achieve. After getting clear on what I want to achieve, I set the date(s) and break it down to smaller chunks that fit into my weekly to do -list which by the way is never called to do -list as I find it boring and not inspiring. Let’s make some magic or Get shit done works way better!
So now we are ready for the new week. I would love to hear your takeouts from this and especially about your planning routines, goal setting or journaling habits. Feel free to send me a DM on instagram @ainoawashere, comment on my blog or just reply on this love letter. I’m always super happy to hear from you and I think you might have some cools tips and ideas too that would help me and the other people on their journey, so share the love!
Have a lovely and inspiring week, see ya!
P.S. Make sure you follow my instagram @ainoawashere as that’s the channel I’m mostly present and share my life in daily basis!
P.P.S. All the stationery seen in the article can be found from the shop, cards here and the Aura notebook here.
You know those delicious images of mugs full of green and foamy drink that have taken over Instagram? As a serious coffee addict I’m usually quite sceptical about other drinks but I felt so drawn to this beautiful green drink so I decided to give it a go and learn a bit more about it. …
All the products I design have a story behind them. Some longer than others and some more important. That goes also with client work. I think there should always be the story, the reason, the why before anything is designed, established or branded.
I always wish I had more time to DIY stuff and my Pinterest and notebooks are full of ideas I never have time to actually do. This time I decided to go for it and we ended up having so much fun with my daughter on this small but lovely project.
It started as a small DIY idea to do with my daughter and ended up being the quite accurate entry of the feelings right now. Kinda like Corona Diaries of this very moment.
Planning | How to change your dreams to actual goals
I wanted to share some ideas of planning with you and tell you how to change your dreams to actual goals.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in with dreaming, following your intuition and listening your gut feeling. Every time I have done that, the results are amazing and whenever I ignore my inner guidance, I end up with difficult client, complicated situation or just feeling exhausted, wrong, sad and overwhelmed.
But besides that inner compass, you need to have some structure in your actions and what’s even more important, you need to be clear of where you are going. It’s easy to forget the planning and just go with flow, ending up nowhere.
Destination
When you are heading to a physical location, to your friends house, to a bar, to school, to an appointment, what will you do first? You check the address and then you plan your route. It doesn’t matter if it’s on navigator or in your mind but you do that. You know where you are going and you figure out how to get there, not to mention how long it takes. Same goes with your dreams.
Know where you are going
You need to know where you are going, what are you trying to achieve. If that’s unclear to you, how will you even know when or if you arrive in the right destination? See, you need to be very clear about where you are going. Focus on your goal, make it as clear as possible and make sure you know how it looks like when it’s accomplished.
For example, if you want to grow your business, your goal cannot be “grow my business” as that’s too vague to measure. Having vague goals ends up you feeling disapointed as there is no achievement point, the goal is never ready, done or accomplished. “I want to have two more clients per month” is achievable goal. It’s clear, measurable and you absolutely know when you have succeeded. See the difference?
How success looks like?
To be able to feel that you have achieved something, you need to know how success looks like. Visualize it, write it down, make a list, whatever works for you but make it clear for yourself. Two clients more per month, 1K€ more income per month, 1 hour a day for selfcare, writing the Morning Pages every day. You can pick any goal you want, just make sure it’s clear.
Give it a date
The second part is to give it a date. An actual deadline to make sure that you are committed to do it. Otherwise you might skip doing the action and just wait that something mystically happens. Set a goal and give it a date when it has to be completed. Now you are ready. After these steps you only have to break the goal down to smaller pieces and steps to follow, put those steps on the timeline and well, do it.
Enjoy the journey
Let’s get back to heading to your friend’s house. You know it will take some time and depending on the route you picked, some turning points, points where you have to slow down and points when you can speed up. But eventually, you will get there. Sometimes something happens in between. There might be an accident that slows you down or your bike might broke, bus is not on time or you realise that you forgot your phone and you have to go back to get it. Any of these things doesn’t mean that you will not end up where you were going, it just takes a bit longer than you estimated.
Remember that when you set your goals. Be prepared to face some obstacles but never lose faith to accomplish the goal eventually. Sometimes the journey even ends up being more important than the goal itself, so enjoy the ride.
Planning the steps
What comes to planning the actual steps to reach your goal, I wanted to share my routines to inspire you to find yours. I do a lot of different kind of planning as having two companies and employees makes the situation a bit complicated. Because of all these different companies, social media channels, people and tasks, I prefer having two different types of plans and goals. The first part is digital, we use Google Calendar, Asana and Slack to be able to communicate and share the plans, goals and tasks. That’s the easiest way when you have more than one person involved and different kind of projects going on all the time.
The second part is my personal planning and goal setting. I use bullet journal for that and I highly emphasise the personal aspect of using it. The reason I chose bullet journal over paper calendar or any other dated notebook is that I can do what I want or need in my own order and way. With bujo I’m not restricted on someone else’s logic or order but I can create my own.
How do I plan my day and week?
My Aura notenook contains both long-term goal setting as lists, mood boards, visual treasure maps and motivational quotes and the daily tasks and to do -lists. I also journal freely when I feel the urge for that and don’t really care if I wrote on every day or in chronological order whatsoever. I do it when it feels right.
What I do on regular basis is the weekly spread. That’s my main tool for organising everything. I make it every Sunday or Monday depending a bit on the circumstances and I have developed it to be very functional and simple. With Aura I don’t even need that much decorations as all the spreads are already beautiful with the variating color gradients. Sometimes I add stickers, quotes or photos but that’s not the main point of the weekly spread. It’s a tool, not an artwork.
I made you a small video of making one weekly spread, hope you enjoy it! You can watch the video below.
As you can see, it’s really simple. On the left side I write down all the appointments or other things that have an actual date, time or deadline. On the right side I have my to do -list which I couldn’t unfortunately share with you as it contains some confidential client info but it’s basically just a bulleted list. When something is done, I cross it over and if something is not completed in a week, I will just casually move it to the next weeks list when I’m drawing the next weekly spread.
Recently I started to use 2 columns to do -list instead of one and the first one is for the things moved from last week and the right one is for the new ones. That helps me even more to get a clear, complete view on what’s happening or what needs to be done first.
Let’s make some magic!
What I have on weekly spread are already smaller pieces of bigger goals. The big picture goal setting is done on different pages and with wider view on things I want to achieve. After getting clear on what I want to achieve, I set the date(s) and break it down to smaller chunks that fit into my weekly to do -list which by the way is never called to do -list as I find it boring and not inspiring. Let’s make some magic or Get shit done works way better!
So now we are ready for the new week. I would love to hear your takeouts from this and especially about your planning routines, goal setting or journaling habits. Feel free to send me a DM on instagram @ainoawashere, comment on my blog or just reply on this love letter. I’m always super happy to hear from you and I think you might have some cools tips and ideas too that would help me and the other people on their journey, so share the love!
Have a lovely and inspiring week, see ya!
P.S. Make sure you follow my instagram @ainoawashere as that’s the channel I’m mostly present and share my life in daily basis!
P.P.S. All the stationery seen in the article can be found from the shop, cards here and the Aura notebook here.
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It started as a small DIY idea to do with my daughter and ended up being the quite accurate entry of the feelings right now. Kinda like Corona Diaries of this very moment.