It’s time to look at our yearly goals and figure out how to break them down into manageable monthly goals and projects for ourselves, our family and our home.
Remember, it takes a lifetime of planning and organizing to get the future you want. Life is a journey and a process, and if you work on things that are important to you yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily, you’ll look back at a lifetime that you’re really happy with. So, now, and at the beginning of EVERY month, get out some paper, and at the top write “Monthly Goals and Projects“.
Based on your six areas of life that I talked about in my previous post, write them down again, but write what you want to accomplish in this particular month for each area. You might have more or less categories that you want to use, but I’ve used mine as an example.
1)Spiritual – Maybe your church attendance was low last month and you want to make an extra effort to never miss a service this month. Maybe this is the month that a new Bible study starts and you need to make a point of signing up. Sometimes I like to read a good spiritual book and make sure I finish it by the end of the month.
2)Family – Decide specifically how often to call and visit family members. Write down any special events for this month, especially birthdays, anniversaries, or anything that involves your family and friends. You also need to look at any special events coming up that you need to get ready for, like reunions, parties, showers, vacations, etc.
3)Homelife – Plan your weekly cleaning but, also, is it time to do any seasonal projects? If so, I try to do those the first week of the month to get them out of the way. Also, the first week of the month, I try to do a more thorough job of cleaning my house. If you’re doing any decorating this month, make a plan for how much of it you want to get done this month.
4)Personal – Do I need to lose weight or maintain my weight? I try to come up with an exercise plan that I’ll actually do and a healthy eating plan that’s realistic for my lifestyle. I know that my health habits now will affect my health in the future, so this is super important. Also, we can think about the other personal goals we want to accomplish this year and what part of those we want to do this month. My hobby is reading, so I try to read at least one book per week.
5)Finances – I recommend that you read a personal finance book to get you started. Then, of course, make your budget for this month. Include how much you’re going to save and what it’s for, according to your financial goals.
6)Career – Look at your yearly goal for this and decide what you need to do this month. Do whatever you need to do to take some action on your career goals. At a minimum, you should stay current and up-to-date with what is going on in your field.
I’ve included a helpful Lifetime Goals Worksheet to help organize your goals and help you to keep a record of them. I’ve included my six categories and a few spaces to add in additional categories.
You now have a detailed list of this month’s goals and projects. If you do this EVERY month, by the end of one year, you will have a much better chance of getting to where you want to be. Now, I recommend that you put your MONTHLY GOALS list along with your YEARLY GOALS list into a folder. Every Sunday evening or Monday morning, you should look at the monthly projects and put these into your weekly schedule, which is what I’ll be showing you next. So, come back tomorrow and I’ll show you how we’ll break these goals down even further, by putting them into our WEEKLY schedule.