Positive Focus Sunday - Plans and Overlap

As most people who know me know, I HAVE to have goals, plans, projects, task lists, etc. It's me. Me and my planner. And I have been mentioning over the past few weeks how I am working on my plans for 2022. 

This year I had an epiphany. 

Of course, this is probably something everyone else has known from Day 1. But this year it really hit me between the eyes as I was working out my 'strategy' for the new year. 

I think it's because this year, for the first time in a while, I am really separating out the 'areas' in my life and what I wanted to accomplish in each of these areas. A lot of this is pulled from Hal Elrod and his Miracle Morning program.   In his program, you rate 10 areas in your life, work, family, personal, health, etc. and what you want to do to raise your rating in these areas.

So I am taking this and merging it with my Heart Breathings HB90 program where you set goals, break them down by quarter and then break them down into tasks or projects and work on them. Granted the HB90 program is primarily focused on writing, but the premise can be used for any area in your life where you want to make a difference.

Any, my epiphany...

As I was going through the different areas and the things I wanted to concentrate on or accomplish in those areas, I realized SO MANY OF THE THINGS I WANT TO DO OVERLAP!

For example -

I want to control my spending and save more. Ok, that means I have a budget and set limits in certain areas, like groceries. So how do I stay within my grocery budget monthly and maybe even start to cut it back some?

Menu planning and shopping from a list rather than just wandering through the store and picking up what interests me at the time would be the best way. It also saves me time in that I know what I am eating during a particular week and not having to guess what I'm having for meals during the day. 

Menu plan! Wait, one of the things I want to do in my 'Health' area is to eat better so that I lose weight. And I want to lose weight to feel better and to be more active. But don't I have over here in my 'Personal' area I want do be more active and do more things? Which brings me back to my word of the year which is MINDFUL. You mean be mindful of what I am putting in my body? 

In addition, I want to expand my garden in order to (1) save money, (2) eat what I grow and can/freeze extra produce, (3) for the exercise and (4) because I enjoy being outside with plants and (5) it makes me happy. Which brings me back to the Finance and Health areas! 

See where I'm heading?

So it's not just something I want to tackle in just one area in my life, it's something which affects multiple areas and goals. So by doing one thing, I am actually working on several different goals at the same time.

Suddenly the things I want to accomplish this year don't seem quite as enormous list as I first thought, they are so integrated with each other. 

For January, where I would normally budget $300 for food for the month (this includes any eating out I do), I have started my 'Eat From the Pantry'. It will be interesting to see how much I actually spend on food during January and how well I have my menu planned out each week. And because I am being more conscious of what I'm eating, will I lose any weight?

Check back in February for an update!