Guidelines and new goals – part 1

In this article I will be setting new goals, and setting guidelines for how I want to live life.

Quick recap

But before we begin, let’s first take a look at the previous two steps that I took to get to this article. First I revisited my personal core values, taking another look at how they influence my life at this moment in time.

My five personal core values are:

Love – Fun – Growth – Authenticity – Freedom

I discovered that the values Growth and Fun have an outward focus, and the others are primarily inward focused.

Based on the new insights, I rewrote my personal mission statement into this:

I, Lodewijk van den Broek, love life and have a lot of love to give. I radiate positive energy and inspire others to learn and laugh. I thrive on growing my freedom and authenticity.

Or as a mantra: learning life laughing

From the conceptual to the practical

Knowing my personal core values is very valuable, because they are the core influencers of my decisions. They do so regardless of me knowing them, but the knowledge helps me understand why I make decisions the way I do (or why I doubt about others).

My personal mission statement is a way of formulating what my “true North” is, it gives me direction in my life. So knowing my values and having a statement, gives me direction and insight in my decision process. But direction and insight are still rather conceptual. To be able to work on goals or to be able to take day-to-day decisions easily, another step is required.

Last time I used a division in five different aspects of life to define guidelines for each. I continued from there and set several goals for each different aspect.

Five aspects * several goals per aspect = too many goals

I still like the five aspects though, and I’m going to use them again for the guidelines. For the goals however I already decided earlier that I only want three of them simultaneously. One focused on results, one focused on effort and one just for fun. And I want to work with timeframes of six weeks.

Five states of life

The five states of life are a guideline to explore different aspects of life. There are probably many other ways of looking at life that will fit this exercise too. I might explore that sometime, but for now that’s not my focus.

My values and mission statement need to trickle down into these guidelines. So for every state, I want to know what the central values are. And I look at the part of my mission statement where this value is represented. I also look back at the guidelines I set last time. So, here we go!

Material state

This is everything regarding money and possessions

The old guidelines

1. I will not buy stuff I cannot easily afford
2. I have financial freedom
3. I own a large and spacious house with free views and a garden

The central value here is Freedom. Looking at the old guidelines, I still like number one. The other two however don’t seem to be fitting as guidelines. Being financially free is more an ambition, that may become a guideline once I reach that point (newsflash: I haven’t). The third one has a solution built in, which limits its function as a guideline.

In my mission statement I state that I thrive on growing my freedom, and that’s very much true for this particular state. My guidelines should reflect that attitude of growth. But what’s does freedom mean in this context? I could write an entire blogpost about that question, but for now I’ll leave it at this:

The new guidelines

• Less stuff
• Less cash out
• More cash in

The last one is tricky though, because it might lead to financial freedom, but compromise that same value on other states. Something to watch out for!

Active state

This is how you are active in life, the way you add value to society. This can be work, volunteer work, but also hobbies.

The old guidelines

• I create grand and beautiful things that have growth and fun as a central theme
• I create positive energy for myself and pass it on in interaction with other people
• Action is the only way of learning
• Simple is always better than complex

The central values here are Growth and Fun. The active state is very outward focused and I already discovered that these values suit that focus for me. I also discovered that high impact and design play a role here too, and that already shows in the old guidelines. In my mission statement I talk about positive energy and about inspiring people to learn and laugh.

So looking back at these guidelines, they’re still pretty accurate. I still like to rewrite them to make them shorter. So here it goes:

The new guidelines

• Teach and learn
• Have fun
• Create beauty

Social state

This is about you in relationship with others. What is your role as human being, as parent, child, spouse, friend, colleague and so on.

The old guidelines

1. I make people cheerful and make them think
2. I help other when they ask me, and the people I love before they ask me
3. I love nature and give her back as much as she gives me

The central values in this state are Love and Fun. At least one of the two needs to be the basis for a lasting social relationship, but preferably both. There are different forms and levels of love of course.

The love and the fun that are connected with this social state are already reflected in the guidelines. The part where I make people think is better off in my active state though, there’s no need to mix these states unnecessarily. But all in all, these guidelines are still pretty much okay. I made them a little shorter though:

The new guidelines

• Love and have fun
• Be there before you’re needed
• Give back to nature

End of part 1

This turned out into an exercise that took me further than I expected at first. I’m half way through here; two more states need to be revisited and the process needs to be result in a set of goals. Those will be in the next part of this post.

Posted in sprouting beans on Sun 2010.02.14