Okay, so you are thinking, what’s Ivy going on about now?
What has she got to say about the Coca Cola brand of 5 Alive juices?
This is not about drinks. Lol! This is about the 5 very crucial parts of what could be termed as the ‘Wheels of Life’, that ‘make you come alive’ and reach you full potential as a person.
So, Happy 2020 and a start of the new decade everybody.
It’s that time of the year when everywhere you turn to on social media, the radio, television and even in face-to-face conversions, the recurring question is ‘have you set your goals for the year?’.
And it is quite a necessary question to ponder on and answer, but I have a little twist in this tale.
Maybe it is time to stop setting goals? What do you think?
It is time to be more Growth Conscious, instead of Goal Conscious.
- The Goal Conscious is focused on the destination, while the Growth Conscious focused on the journey.
- Goals is seasonal while Growth is lifelong.
- The Goal Conscious waits for Growth to come, while the Growth Conscious takes responsibility for growth.
I could go on and on but that may just be a topic for another day.
But the message I want to pass across is let’s have ‘Growth-Goals’ instead of just ‘Goals’.
Just in case you are still wondering – why Growth- Goals? This approach will stop you from falling into the trap of setting goals in just one or two areas that you think are important and neglect other equally as important areas. The vision should be to ‘become a better version of yourself’. Stick with me and you may learn something new.
As a transformation coach, there is no way I would have been accountable or my growth without a coach. So, I too have a life coach. And there is something funny she says which cracks me up – ‘a coach without a coach is a cockroach. So that was meant to make you smile. I think we take life too seriously sometimes. But, on a serious note, everyone needs a coach or a mentor to grow from one level to the other.
Anyhow, one of those days when we had my growth strategy session, she mentioned something that I thought was profound about setting growth-goals, which she called ‘Her 5 Alive’. And of course, I made them My 5 Alive too, because they were easy to remember and made perfect sense.
And because I am not selfish, I gladly share with you these crucial 5 areas to set your growth-goals in.
These ‘My 5 Alive’ will motivate you to do just that.
If we were to do a poll, I bet you that Fitness would rate the highest set goal at this time of the year or any time really. That is because people are just obsessed with either losing weight or putting on weight (you never know) or having a six pack or tight abs. Everyone has mental picture of how they want to look and feel.
Fitness: It is one thing to set a goal to lose weight, then to actually lose the weight, and then to maintain the newly-slaved-for-achieved-weight. And that is where growth-goals come in. Once you begun hitting the gym – started jogging – walking – strict dieting, with commitment, discipline and purpose, there was no going back. You started a fitness journey that altered your lifestyle in several ways. But, once you have achieved the fitness goal, do you go back to your old ways? No! that will be a sacrilege. What you need is to access your current weight achievements and set goals to maintain. So regardless of what ever stage you are in, the Experts would recommend a Doctor, Dietician or a Work-out Instructor; and I say get all the help you need to maintain the achieved weight goals. That is growth.
Finance:
This is a growth-goal I believe would rate second in the polls, because we always have financial goals. But the question is, what are you setting financial goals for? What are your 3 WHYS for growing your financial strength? Are you saving or investing just to see your net worth increase? Or can you look back at the end of the year and point out at least one area other than you, that some of your nest egg impacted positively aside from you? Now that really is financial growth, because your perspective of financial goals has grown (I speak to myself too).
Flourish:
This growth-goal is all about adding value to what you already have inside you constantly, so that you can positively impact those around you and even the organization your work for. It is all about growing you. It could call on you to invest in books – E-book or the old school traditional books (like I favor) and reading them. A lot of people these days find it so difficult to read. So, I say, start easy; buy a book on a topic that interest you and ensure that it is not more than 150 pages. Then have a goal to read one page a day. By the time it is almost half of the year, you would have read the entire book. That is growth. You could also try audio books if reading pages is such a chore, just make sure you fill your mind with positive information.
Another area of flourish is in your gifts. Do you know what gifts you were blessed with? Do you have a creative side that you are passionate about? If yes, are you cultivating that gift? You must know you to grow you. And fulfilment will always seem unattainable if you are not exploring your potential. So, make time for your gifts and commit to growing your abilities.
Finally, are you flourishing at work. If you are not growing you, you may find flourishing at work difficult. Invest in courses that would help you add value to your job and even other areas in the organization you work with.
Faith:
Now this is not an easy growth-goal to set on out on a journey to achieve because it depends on what level of spiritual depth you desire to attain. But I would always say that each person needs to do a spiritual evaluation to know what spiritual level you want to grow in. Regardless of what faith you are, see spiritually growth as a journey of discovery.
Family and Friends:
We often take for granted family and friends because we think that there will always be there. Believe me I was very guilty of this. But as time flies and if we are observant, we would discover that we have lost quality time. ‘Time is love’ the wise say, so one of your growth-goals should be to make time for family and friends. You can make time to call, you can make time to visit, and you make time to travel or do some fun things together. The aim is to create memories that would last a lifetime. Memories that you can reflect on and make your heart swell when you feel low. It is important to give people flowers while they can smell them. That is love. So, I started with making a list of people that I hold dear and then next to each name listed how I would like to spend time with them and when. I find that writing down things-to-do always brings clarity and makes me accountable. And then I reach out to them and make plans, lock it in my calendar, and I show-up.
Have a fantastic decade and keep growing.
