How To Set Goals & Get Clear About Your Future
For the past month or so, Pabs and I have been talking about the future, our seemingly endless possibilities, and debating what it really is that we want out of life.
We’ve gone from wanting to buy a plot of land and build a house, to wanting to sell everything and travel the world, to consider moving somewhere so Pabs can do an MBA, to finding a way to move back to Australia, to wanting to open up a juice shack in some tropical beach. Yeah, it’s been a roller coaster, that’s for sure.
The thing is, we’re young & we don’t have kids, so it feels like our possibilities are endless.
How do you go about choosing your next steps? How do you decide which doors to close and which doors to walk through? (Also.. when we “close a door”, did it even close, or is there suddenly a parallel universe with Nats&Pabs 2.0? Will we ever encounter their lives? But yeah, that’s a question for another time lol)
We struggled with this uncertainty for quite a while.
And now, after weeks and weeks of struggling with the uncertainty of it all, we finally found some clarity!
So it’s my turn to share how we found this clarity, in hopes that you can get clear about your future and calm down whatever anxieties you’ve been feeling too :) Make sure to read til the end, where I’ll summarize what I’ve learned and share the steps you can follow!
Now, just as a disclaimer - this blog post is mostly focused on my life with Pabs. We’re newlyweds, so of course, most of our life decisions from now on, will be interlinked. Whether you’re in a relationship with someone or just with yourself, you can take these same steps.
It all starts with open, honest communication.
With your partner, yes, but also with yourself.
One of the things I love most about my relationship with Pabs is our love for conversation. We both really enjoy sitting down with a bottle of wine and talking about our feelings, our hopes, our dreams.
Our problem as of late was the fact that our future was WAY too open. There were so many life paths opening up to us, and we kind of wanted to grab them all and have a set plan TODAY. But, as you may know… life doesn’t work like that.
For example, we know we don’t want to live in Chile forever. So we started looking into which countries we could move to. We then created a list. And then.. it started getting complicated: “Ok but if we live in XX then what would we work in?” or “what kind of visa do we need in order to live in XX country?”.
We’d start out talking about our goals and dreams.. but end up thinking about visas and work. We were thinking inside the box & being way too practical about it.
Our conversations had been very “up in the air” and I decided I wanted to ground them down.
So, we changed our strategy.
I grabbed my (beautiful) pen and started jotting down everything that came up. You could do this in your notes app but really - the act of putting a pen to paper is quite therapeutic.
I got into the mindset that whatever I was writing down I was either releasing or manifesting.
MANIFESTING YOUR DREAM LIFE
For weeks, we sat down every night and had long conversations about the kind of future we longed to live. What started off as a frustrating conversation about visas and work (as mentioned above), slowly turned into a wider conversation.
We shifted our perspective from the WHEN and WHERE and HOW to simpler questions:
WHAT DO I WANT?
What do I want more of, TODAY?
How do I want to FEEL?
And the answers started flowing:
I want to learn how to surf.
I want to watch as many sunsets and sunrises as possible.
I want to spend more time together.
I want to be a conscious, present and loving parent.
I want to read more.
I want to be location independent.
I want to eat healthy.
These are just some of the answers we came up with (and none of these are location exclusive!)
We realized we didn’t need to have our final plan figured out. We didn’t need to know where we’ll work or where we’ll live.
We just needed to focus on what feelings we want MORE of, and go from there. At the end of the day, we are chasing what we want because of how it will make us feel, so start with the feeling & the rest will line up!
Of course, this doesn’t mean we should discard all of our future dreams and say fuck it.
But we realized, we can start integrating these small things into our life.
For example, I said I wanted to read more.
I envisioned a life where I’m reading a book, every single day.
So I’ve since been picking up a book and reading for at least 10 minutes a day.
Integrating this small habit into my life TODAY - so that in the future it’s already a part of who I am and what I do.
“The difference between who you are & who you want to be, is what you do”
All of the things we came up with on this list of “Our Dream Life” were attainable. Some more than others, yes, but we could start many of them TODAY. And whatever job or city we end up at, doesn’t really matter, as long as they’re aligned with our overall Dream Life and the way we want to feel.
After all the conversations with Pabs, and lots of journaling on my part, I’ve become really clear about the things I can start doing today in order to reach my desired future.
SET A TIMELINE FOR YOUR GOALS AND DREAMS
Another thing I realized would help us gain a little more clarity, was to focus on the BIG PICTURE instead of on the details.
We wrote down the things we want to accomplish, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 & 20 years from now. We called this our Dream Timeline.
For me, they looked a little like this:
(I’ve hidden a few of those cuz some things are too personal to share 😜)
Let’s go deeper with this list.
For the next year, I put Yoga Teacher Training.
I don’t know if this time next year i’ll be done with it or not - but my goal is to at least have started it. Be on my way to that.
Because when I think of future me, I know I’ll be a Yoga Teacher. So i’ve already started looking into YTTs, contacting them and weighing my options.
For two years from now, I put Travel Around Chile.
Does that mean I can’t travel around Chile today? Hell nah.
I just want to make it more and more of a priority to travel my country that year, because I know that…
Three years from now, I want to Move Abroad.
Notice how I didn’t write “Move to Spain” (a strong contender in our list of possible future countries).
I kept it open. Move abroad. That excites me!
If I had written move to Spain, then that might give me a bit more anxiety (how, when, where?!!??!).
But leaving it open means I’ll deal with all that when the time comes. I’m open to all the possibilities, and I know the right opportunities will come into my life when the time is right (TRUST).
So this is one example of an exercise that has helped me gain clarity about my future and my life goals.
Do I have my whole future figured out now? Nope.
Is this timeline written in stone? Also nope.
I know that nothing is certain and plans change.
But now I know that wherever life takes me, whatever plans pop up, I still have a certain direction i’m moving towards.
So anyway. Since i’m a bit of a perfectionist and like things being a bit tidier than your usual pen and paper doodles, I wrote down all these dreams and goals on my laptop and printed them out.
You’ve probably heard of vision boards.
I have an empty wall in my apartment, so I decided to make it my Vision Wall.
I hung up my dreams and my goals, and am slowly turning this wall into a wall full of quotes and photos and a general manifestation of what I want from my life (I’ll eventually share it with you once i’m done with it).
But so far, I’ve loved having the two things I mentioned above (Our Dream Life, with our achievable goals we can start embodying right now, and our Dream Timeline, with our goals for the future within a certain time frame) hanging on my wall and reminding me to do what I can TODAY in order to reach for my dreams.
Okay, enough about me! Let’s summarize.
6 steps you can take in order to Set Goals & Get Clear About Your Future:
Visualize your ideal life/Ask yourself what you REALLY want. Think about what you’d like to FEEL in your Dream Life, and make a list (with pen and paper!) Answer questions such as “What do I want?”, “What do I want more of, TODAY?” and/or “How do I want to FEEL?”
Grab that list and acknowledge all of the things you can start doing TODAY. The future can seem wide and uncertain - so focus on the things you can start doing in the PRESENT, ir order to build, however slowly, towards that ideal life. What can integrate into your daily life?
Make a dream timeline. Think of the things you want to achieve, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20 years from now (you can change those numbers to your liking, obviously, but those resonated with me).
Write all of this down with pen and paper, or turn it into something digital and print it out. But don’t just write it/print it and put it away. Hang it up somewhere where you’ll see it constantly, in order to keep you motivated to keep working towards these life goals & dreams:
Create a Vision Board! Add your Dream Life Goals & your Dream Timeline, quotes, pictures, affirmations and anything else that will inspire you and fill you with joy and motivation! I could create a whole blog post about how to make your vision board, but i’m sure there’s plenty already online :) One important thing to note though: A vision board should never be something you do once and forget about. It’s a process! You’ll need to evaluate it regularly and modify as needed.
Last but not least, practice gratitude. Acknowledge all of the great things you have going on for you right now, and make space for all the lovely things coming your way. Gratitude breeds gratitude!
Where will you be…?
If you made it this far, CONGRATS! I trust you will take these learnings and apply them into your own life.
Wherever it is your future will take you, it all starts with the things you do right now.
And just by reading this blog post, you’re already one step closer to living the life you want!
So now, let’s get to work & start creating our Dream Future, TODAY.
If you feel like you need a little bit more guidance, whether that’s setting goals, creating healthy habits and routines, or just want someone to talk to about your current life/health concerns, feel free to Schedule an Initial Free Call with Me!
