Goal planning

I am excited. I have made plans for singing this summer, I have new songs to learn and a program to put together. I'm excited about that. I am stretching my wings and soaring again.

Too often we get caught up in the day to day necessities for existence that we set our dreams aside, forgetting to focus on them and neglecting to work towards them. I need to change that. It's not working for me very well.

I recently purchased the book "7 Habits of Happy Kids" for my boys. We are all enjoying reading the stories. The first two habits - to make goals and to have a plan. What simple, yet highly helpful advice! C has made goals already. He wants to buy a new crane because his old one broke and he misses it. I'm not buying it out of a need to teach him to treat his toys with respect and take care of them, so he had to come up with a plan to buy it. He is now responsible for taking all our bottle recycling to the basement storage until we have enough to take to the bottle depot. He has to split the proceeds 50/50 with A so it may take a while to get enough collected, but he'll get there and he'll appreciate the crane more for it. I'm proud of him. As soon as there is a bottle or container in the kitchen, he runs it right down to the basement. I may have to do weekly bottle depot runs to make him feel like he's getting somewhere, but it's worth the extra effort on my part and it's giving him something to be responsible for and teaches him and me that he can be relied on.

He's teaching me a lesson too. How often do I want something, but neglect to plan for it? I'm planning for the summer now. I'm preparing for what I want. The sooner I begin practicing my songs, the better I will sing them before a crowd. Of course, it's not a sure thing and sometimes our plans go awry anyway, but if I don't plan, I won't succeed.

Are you setting goals and making plans to achieve them? I challenge you to write out your goals today, then pick at least one and make a plan to accomplish it. It's changed my outlook, and I bet it changes yours too!