During this time when we are unable to go out and do the things we would normally be doing, we can feel angry or like we are failing. We had goals and some of them are just no longer possible at this time.
Maybe you were working hard for a family vacation you can no longer take. Maybe you had a sales goal for your business but due to the current circumstances, people are not in the market for what you sell.
Sometimes we set goals for ourselves or we decide what is important to us based on the current circumstances, but when those circumstances change, it no loner makes sense.
For example, I had certain goals for my party printables Etsy shop, but now that no one can have parties, no one is really buying party printables. So my goals have to change.
The following exercise is a way to review your goals and priorities in order to adapt them to the current environment.
1. Review what you have.
The first step is to recall the goals and priorities you previously had in place. Maybe you had business goals, or family goals, or financial goals, or life goals. Find where you wrote them or write them out again.
Also look at your values, they may also have shifted during this time. Maybe you valued long stints of hard work knowing you had a big vacation coming up, but now there are no big vacations in sight. Look at all the things that were important to you in the past and add them to your list.
2. Remove What’s Not Important
The next step is to go through your list and just remove the things that no longer seem important. Maybe you previously had a goal to visit every continent in the next year. In light of the current circumstances, that may no longer be important.
Or maybe you were saving up for a big convention that’s no longer happening or just no longer seems important.
Just completely cross out the things that are no longer important to you at this time.
3. What is Still Important and Possible
Now you want to go through your list again and find the things that are still important and also still possible at this time. This can be things like spending quality time with your kids, reaching out to friends, having quality time with your spouse.
The way you are doing these things may not be exactly the same, no brunches with the girls and date nights with the spouse, but they are definitely still possible.
Circle each of these items on your list. They will be carried over to your new goals and priorities because they are still important and you can still do them.
4. Important But No Longer Possible
Now all that we should have left are the things that are important to us still but aren’t possible. We have two options here: either we change the goal or we change how we achieve it.
The goal of reaching a certain income goal from birthday party printables may not be possible at this time. But is there another way to reach your income goal. Maybe create kids activity printables to keep kids entertained. Or sell printables to help moms figure out their new quarantine schedule. Or sell coloring printables, or motivational printables.
You can reach the same goal but in a different way.
On the other hand, maybe your goal was a big family vacation. Well, maybe you can’t travel, but can you create parts of your vacation experience at home? Maybe you can find recipes for favorite vacation foods. What activities do you usually do on vacation? Can you recreate them at home?
Maybe your new goal can be to create a stay-cation experience with your family. We had been saving money for a family vacation plus some fun day trips. Now we are taking a portion of that money to add some fun to our own backyard so we can bring some of that vacation fun home.
5. Set New Goals
This pandemic and quarantine may have changed your perspective on some things. You may value time with family and close friends more, you may realized that you were over-committed and you don’t really need to be involved in so many things.
You may want to set new goals for yourself either for the present or for when things start returning to normal. Maybe you will commit to calling friends more, or planing more meetups. Maybe you want to limit the number of groups you will get back involved in.
Maybe you realized that your finances were all reliant on one job and one company and you decide to make it a goal to start a side hustle so that you have additional income during difficult times.
This pandemic is giving many of us new perspective, it’s important to take advantage of the insights we have been given.
With such a great change to our normal lives, we can feel lost and without direction. We can feel like we are running through the motions but not making ourselves or our lives better and completely losing track of our goals.
By actually sitting down and reviewing our goals and priorities, we can give ourselves new direction and focus even when things feel very much out of our control. There are things we cannot change, but there are also things we can.
Take some time to figure out your new goals today and it will help you in all the days to come.
Cheers,
Emily
