Set yourself up for success next week.
Set aside some time at the end of this week for review and planning. Starting this planning session with your yoga and meditation practices will settle your body and mind. Include your affirmation, intention and gratitude along with a glass of water and make this time enjoyable – light a candle, diffuse some essential oils, arrange for some quiet time to focus.
Make it a priority to take care of yourself so that you can better take care of others.
Get out your goal sheet and tracker(s). Have next week’s calendar/schedule available to you so you have a view of your upcoming appointments and commitments.
Review your goals and your tracking sheet(s).
Ask yourself the following questions (writing down your answers will help you to be accountable to them):
What went well?
Take a moment to acknowledge your effort and success!!! This will reinforce your future commitment boosting will-power and is an empowering act of self care and self love.
- How did these successes improve your overall wellbeing?
- Why were you successful?
- What tools, supports, actions or attitudes worked for you? Are they available in the upcoming week?
- How will you ensure success again next week?
- What time commitments or stressors are new in the upcoming week that could impact your success? How can you plan around or through these to support yourself?
- Are you ready for an increase in challenge for any of these goals? Will it be a good week to implement the increase or should these goals remain the same? Try not to take a backwards step here, but be aware that some weeks will have more obstacles than others.
Share your success! Share it with the quest group; share it with a loved one; write it down and post it as a reminder to yourself.
What was a challenge?
Take a moment to give yourself grace! Challenges are where growth happen! No one is 100% successful all of the time. Be grateful for the challenges–the insight and lessons they show you!
- Why were these things a challenge?
- What impeded your success?
- Where did you schedule this goal into your day, and is there a better time?
- Are you in your own way (be real with yourself)?
- How will you ensure greater success next week?
- What time commitments in the upcoming week will impact success? Resolve these best you can in your plan.
- Is there a decrease in challenge that will be possible to implement or should these goals remain the same?
- Spend some time thinking about why these goals are important to you. Is this a goal you are truly committed to? What will you gain in the short term and in the long term with this goal? Are the goals S.M.A.R.T. ••• S – specific. M –measurable. A – action-oriented. R – realistic. T – time-oriented?
- Can you piggyback this goal to a goal you were successful with? – – for example, if you were successful with your water goal but not with your gratitude practice, can you put a note of gratitude by the sink or on your water bottle? If the opposite was true, can you keep a glass of water near where you write or review your gratitude practice? Would a morning or evening ritual/routine that incorporates multiple goals be helpful to establish?
Share your challenges – enlist support! Who or what can help you be successful? Perhaps your challenge is one others in the quest group or your circle of friends/family have faced and found solutions to. Ask for tips, help or accountability from someone you trust.
Affirmation – Intention – Gratitude
- How did these serve you this week?
- How often did you practice these?
- Did you experience positive benefits?
- Which one(s) were most impactful?
- Do you want to choose new ones for this week? Or keep the same ones?
Mood
- Did you track your mood this week?
- What was your overall or average mood?
- Where were the highs and lows?
- Can you see any patterns? For example: did your yoga practice improve your mood? Was sleep a factor? How did your hydration and/or nutrition impact your mood? Consider as many factors as you can while you look for patterns and then test your theory this week.
If you notice that certain activities or goals improve your mood, do them! Take notice of the immediate improvement these goals have on any present moment. Immediate gratification is a powerful tool you can use for good! It is much easier to access this power than to use will power.
Schedule your success!
Make your wellness a Priority! Take a deeper look at your week ahead calendar.
Schedule this week’s commitments to yourself on your calendar.
Let us know how it went in the comments section below!
Be well,
Kristi
Quest Goals
- Daily yoga practice
- Water
- Sleep
- Nutrition
- Cardio
- Daily affirmation, intention and gratitude
- Meditate/Quiet/Prayer/Love/Service
- Play/Learn/Create
For most people, accountability and connection will help you to achieve your goals. Actively participate in the facebook group, or seek an accountability partner.
Provide Jenny and Kristi with some feedback about your week to help us develop a stronger program or offer encouragement. You may privately email us at info@priorityyoga.com or talk to us via comments on our website or in the facebook group.
Kristi’s Sunday Planning
Sundays are scheduled as a vital part of my self care. I often think about the safety speech on an airplane when we are told to apply our own oxygen mask first before seeing to those in our care or next to us. I am no good to anyone if I can’t breath, and Sundays are my “oxygen” days.
I start by reviewing the most important tasks from the current week and allow some time for a “last call” for accomplishing what I can. I don’t allow this to override the time I need for “oxygen”. (I generally get a large amount of laundry washed and dried as I move through my review and planning.)
Before I get going on my weekly review and planning session, I check in with my husband and each of my kids and ask if they need anything before I take my me-time – this has proven to reduce interruptions or tensions while I’m focusing on me, as well as establish my intentions for the day. I also ask them if they have anything coming up in the week ahead that is out of the ordinary or will require my attention.
Once I’ve established some quiet time, I’ll get myself into a peaceful mindset – yoga, a walk or run, an outdoor chore, some meditation – and some wholesome food and drink. I like to diffuse some essential oil at my work station as well.
Then I get out my journal and planner. I begin by asking myself a lot of questions. I have various “buckets” that I reflect on: Physical, Emotional, Family, Friends, Romance, Community, Spiritual, Work, Play. Which buckets are low? Which buckets are full? Which buckets need more attention? I ask myself how I want the following week to feel. I think about my affirmations, intentions and gratitude–and I write down my thoughts. This keeps the planning of my week ahead centered on my priorities.
My process of review starts with reviewing my to do list and starting a new one – moving tasks that still need my attention to the new list. (I could do this digitally to avoid rewriting tasks, but I find pencil and paper soothing and they add an element of mindfulness that I don’t get from a digital list.) Secondly, I sync up my phone/digital calendar with my paper week ahead calendar, filling in all of my commitments that have firm times. (I use colored pencils color-coded to each of my kids, appointments and deadlines. As I fill out my week, I add tasks to my to do list as they come to mind during scheduling and then doing a “brain dump” of all the tasks filling my head.
As a new homeschool mom, I then take some time to be clear about the upcoming assignments or goals for my son. I schedule them on his homeschool chalkboard and record tasks that fall to me on my list.
Following this, I look at my work or home projects taking note of deadlines and next action steps and scheduling them on my calendar or adding them to my tasks list.
The last step goes back to my journal and personal goals–and I get them onto my calendar. When –exactly– will I do my yoga practice? Who will I reach out to for connection and –exactly– when? My nutrition goal is meal planning for dinners, so I look at my schedule (which includes my family’s schedule) and fill that in and make a grocery list. When –exactly– will I get groceries for the meal plan? That answer is usually “right now” so I go to Fred Meyer’s Click List grocery service, enter my items, schedule a pick up time and place my order.
Done & Ready! (:
Namasté… Kristi
