Dear Readers, the end of February is rapidly approaching… Do you still remember your resolutions? Now that the shine of the new year’s festivities faded away, what are you doing to stay on track with your goals as a full-time employee? Keep reading to find out how to have a fulfilling life amidst the stressful demands of your job.
Welcome to the Branding24Seven community, Dear Readers! As a reminder, this website answers all of your branding questions. In case this is your first time visiting, this blog is the brainchild of JMStrategy LLC (JMS), a boutique consulting firm that offers strategic solutions to strengthen your professional or personal brands. Now, let’s reevaluate your approach to goal setting to inject meaningfulness to your daily life starting today!
Are you sure your goals are working for you?
At the beginning of every new year, there are a lot of talks about goal setting. We write down our wishes, make collages or vision boards about our dreams, and pray that this is the year that everything changes. Yet, as life in the new year keeps getting more and more bruising and talks of goal setting became a thing of the past to be perhaps revisited in 2021. Does this sound familiar to you, Dear Readers?
Your goals are not working for you because they are concepts you are dreaming about without a clear path as to how to accomplish them. As exciting as goals can be, they will not materialize just because you have made a wish. If it was that simple, why have you not been able to reach them so far, Dear Readers? Ok, so the takeaway is simple: goals without a detailed roadmap of how to carry them out are meaningless.
How can you design a roadmap that can lead you to realize your goals definitively?
With a full-time job, it is easy to believe that you do not have enough time to pursue your goals. This blog believes that to focus solely on work-related objectives and dismiss the other aspects of your life is missing the point of living altogether. Indeed, we are multi-dimensional beings, Dear Readers! Therefore, our goals should encompass every facet of our lives!
Consequently, Dear Readers, you must shift your framework away from goal setting to infrastructure building. Thus, a roadmap is the infrastructure you construct to realize your objectives. You know that saying life is about the journey, not about a destination is true. The JMS team often hears clients lament that they are not able to find purpose as the pursuit of missing elements pull their minds in divergent directions and prevent them from experiencing the well-balanced meaningful life they want. In short, what truly matters, in the long run, is the quality of life you have while fighting to reach your goals Dear Readers.
Therefore, Dear Readers, this blog invites you to put in place your infrastructure centered around three central principles:
ONE – Identify what is essential. This single principle will help bring everything into focus. Indeed, you should be able to see what matters most to you. This renewed clarity will help you live the life of purpose you want and eliminate dissatisfaction. By removing nonessentials, you are investing all of your time into personal development endeavors. Dear Readers, is there a more productive manner to focalize your energy?
TWO – Create daily routines or a repertoire of habits that you put in rotation every week to help you evaluate your progress and give you the motivation to keep fighting for what you want. While your full-time job holds an important role, Dear Readers, it is only one aspect of your life. You will find true fulfillment when all other aspects receive the same level of attention.
THREE – Find happiness today rather than falling in the trap of I’ll be happy when I accomplish XYZ. Ultimately, your commitment to the process of building your infrastructure will determine your progress and even success.
How does any of this is supposed to look in real life?
Last year, the JMS team was lucky enough to work with a team to help identify branding misalignment during a crisis management session. One of the employees reached out and asked for more individualized support. Let’s call her Anna.
Anna works long hours for a small nonprofit. She loves her job but feels overworked, underappreciated, and unhappy with her life. She was diagnosed with prediabetes and is worried that hypertension will kill her in her sleep. When asked what her goals were for 2020, she wanted to be successful. When asked how she measured success, all her answers evolved around having more financial freedom (e.g., pay her student debt, finally afford to buy a house, and beef up her retirement account). Dear Readers, do you share the same goals? How is that working out for you? It’s certainly not working out for Anna as she feels unfulfilled even though she loves her job. Dear Readers, do you share the same conundrum? Do you see Dear Readers how such goals are not working for her or you?!!!
Come back later this week to learn in detail how to build each principle of the infrastructure that will allow you to make real progress toward your goals and achieve the purposeful life you have been dreaming of forever!
In the meantime, we want to hear from you. Comment below or email us at jms@branding24seven.com to let us know what you are doing to stay on track with your goals. You can also mail us your questions or concerns to air your grievances safely and get an actionable game plan from the JMS team at:
JMStrategy LLC
21 S. 11th Street, 2nd Floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19107.
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