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The Introspective Salon
At the beginning of this year, I set some intentions and created one big goal for myself. When I set these, I thought about doing monthly reviews to track my progress, but I move slowly toward progress. I'm a sloth, and I'm proud. Reviewing every three months will be much more efficient and fulfilling. If you're interested in doing some sort of review process for your own goals, consider what time frame makes the most sense for your goals. Perhaps you have a big project that needs a weekly review, or maybe checking in at half a year is enough for your needs. For the first time in my life, I've begun taking my personal growth and my goals seriously, so I wanted to take time for some reflection and evaluation. I already have a vague sense of how I'm doing, but exploring my progress might lead me to see a bigger area for improvement or it might help me to see that I need to set new goals and intentions. First, I want to define why I differentiate between goals and intentions. For me, an intention is a broad area of improvement while a goal is a specific task that I want to do on a recurring basis. For example, an intention might be "make peace with my past." A goal might be "go to counseling once a week." My specific intentions this year were to be more grateful and generous. My goal was to write and post a blog entry every week for the whole year. 1. What went really well? - Practicing gratitude every day went really well. - Posting a blog entry every week went really well. 2. What am I most proud of and why? - I'm most proud of myself for continuing to post blogs every week because often times I slip in to feeling dumb about what I'm posting and feeling like it's pointless and consequently, give up. There are probably five or six failed Trisha blogs out there in the vast universe of the Internet. - While I did, at times, feel like posting was dumb and pointless, I reframed those thoughts by making the experience about me. Instead of thinking to myself "no one's reading what does it matter?" I thought to myself "I'm doing this for my own benefit." 3. What was challenging? - Practicing generosity has been challenging. It's hard to measure progress in this area, too, unless I'm donating money every month, but that's not really the type of generosity I'm looking to practice. I mean to be more generous with my time. I volunteered to be a tutor at the Boys and Girls Club here in my home town, but I've only gone twice. I know that this is totally an excuse, but I feel like more of a nuisance than an aid when I go. - I can definitely get back into going, though! I haven't missed too many consecutive weeks for it to feel like a lost cause. 4. What stumbling blocks need to be evaluated? - Well, I need to think about how I intend to embody or achieve generosity. While I would like to go back to volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club, there may be other ways I can give my time. I hesitate to just stop going to BGC because I always hesitate to quit things. I have a real complex with feeling like a quitter. However, sometimes, quitting is okay and it's more about redistributing efforts for better results. There may be other organizations where I can have a more fulfilling volunteer experience and therefore bring more to the table as a volunteer. 5. Did I accomplish what I wanted in the first three months of this year? - Absolutely! I have been posting blog entries every week since 2018 started. - I've been practicing daily gratitude in a gratitude journal. - While I haven't got generosity quite figured out, I will note a positive gain here - I've been more generous with my time when it comes to my family. Specifically, I've been more engaged with my husband and sacrificing more of my own time to hang out with him and express interest in the things that he likes. We are both incredibly independent people, so sometimes it actually takes effort to make time for each other. My husband has really stepped up his game in this department. He sacrifices a lot of time for me, and I've been working on and will continue to work on doing the same for him. 6. Have I celebrated my success? - I have! I haven't had a party or anything, but I've been very celebratory in my attitude and the way I talk to myself. My efforts have not gone unnoticed. 7. Who did I share it with? - I've shared it with my husband, and now, anyone reading this blog! 8. What do I want to continue doing in the next 3 months? - I want to continue posting to this blog every week. - I want to continue my gratitude journaling. - I want to continue being generous with my time for my husband, and the rest of my family, and friends and co-workers! - I want to figure out how I can best donate my time as a volunteer. 9. Are there any intentions or goals that need to be reevaluated or modified? - Yes, I'll work on modifying the generosity intention as needed. 10. Do I want to add any intentions or goals? - I'm feeling really great about my blog postings and I've actually been thinking that I might have something really valuable to offer others with this space. I am going to set a goal to begin researching how to make my blog more professional. My actionable step to achieve this is: 1. Complete an online course or courses about blogging and SEO. 11. How do I hope to feel in the next 3 months? - I hope to feel like being generous is a habit that comes more easily. - I hope to feel more prepared to create an inviting space on the Internet for a community of self-improvement junkies like me. - I hope to feel accomplished! Ok, that's it! That was my quarterly review. In coming up with my questions, I accessed these two blog posts:
stratejoy.com/2012/04/how-to-conduct-a-personal-quarterly-review/ & www.monster.ca/career-advice/article/conducting-your-own-personal-review I tailored the questions to fit my own needs, but I didn't simply create them all on my own, so I wanted to share with you where I found the ideas. Here are the questions without my answers attached in case you would like to use them for yourself!
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