Life Happens

today I talk about dreams, it's the end of the year. It's that kind of a thing going on. And one of the things that I got asked to do as part of a planning exercise was to write down things that I want to do in the next 12 months. And they wanted me to write down a list of things that might be obtainable or unobtainable just just to put it all out, get it on a piece of paper, all the things that I would like to do that I want to do sometime in the next 12 months.

 

And so I scribbled away, got about 10 and scribbled away more about 15, scribbled away a little bit more, got to about 17. And then I went to look at the next set of instructions and the next set of instructions was, you should have at least 50, at which point I was like, oh, 50 50 things that I would like to happen in the next 12 months. And they say, well, that's OK, go away.

 

Sometimes you think about things when you go when you're not thinking about it, this exercise should be done in one day. So you've made a start and I go away and come back with anything else that you think about. So I did and I got up to about 22 and even that was pushing it. And so I wrote to a friend of mine and I said, I'm doing this exercise about dreaming. And, you know, I've been accused of not dreaming big enough before.

 

And so I have this list and I've got twenty two. And she's like, oh that's good, that's twenty two. It's a good place to start. You can always add as the year goes on. So it's like, OK, that's, that's good. So then I went back to the exercise and the next step of the exercise was OK, now that you've got your list of 50 things that you would like to happen sometime in the 12 months, go ahead and cross off some things that are really just not going to happen.

 

Those pie in the sky dreams, for example, maybe some travel plans or some things that are not possible without gobs of money going to space, for example, probably not going to happen. So I went through my list and I scrubbed off three, three things, maybe four. That definitely, almost definitely not going to happen. And these were things that were travel related or things that I had, like, no control over. And I was going to move on to the next stage.

 

And I have these things and and eighty to ninety five percent of them are fairly obtainable. My dream list was a list of obtainable things that I could do. So I wrote to my friend again and I was like, so get this list and it's it's my bed and dream big enough. But I was like, what am I doing wrong here? And she said, All right, let me go look at the list. Let me look at the list.

 

Look how bad could the list be? And so I sent her this tiny list of twenty two things that I would like to do in the next year. And she was like, it's a great list. There's lots of like aspirational stuff on this list. Like, I don't I don't see why this is this is a problem that some of it is practical. Yes. But it is dreamy. Some of the things that you have and having, you know, and without having time to fill it all that that's great.

 

That is dreamy to make sure that you have space and time to do all of this stuff. So I go, OK, then there's some other steps to go and some more planning that I was doing a different exercise. And this exercise was about my business and about what I'm doing. And I had one goal for my business and it turned out that that wasn't the right goal. After going through and checking off and thinking about other things, I had like these three or four other things that were supporting my overall goal.

 

But at the end of the day, no matter how much planning you do, how many dreams you have and many goals you have, things will always change. And that is OK. And I think we forget that, especially when we think like New Year's resolutions and themes, this and that and the other. If this year has not taught us anything more, then things will always change. Things will not always go as you planned. So sometimes it's better not to have that hard core, rigid plan and just to have a vague idea of the direction that you.

 

Want to go in, I was doing planning I a planning session, and one person was very much like, I just want to have three months where I'm not launching and I'm not doing this and I'm just working. And that was great. And that works for her. Have another person that I plan planning with and she's very much like, no, I to do these eighteen thousand different things in this, I'm going to do it and this is what we're going to do that works for her.

 

But there are definitely clients that I work with where they have all these plans and they don't put in before time and don't put in time for life just happening and they get really frustrated with themselves when it doesn't work out. And that's something that I teach my clients, but also want everyone else to know life happens and being able to roll with it is a far better skill than having to stick to a rigid idea. And things have to be done a certain way.

 

Anyway, that's my thought for today. Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. I wish you a great year to come. Thanks for listening.