As a lot of us prepare to return to the daily grind of work and school, it can be hard to get yourself out of holiday zone. so... it's time to reset with us at the international!
Photograph: iStock
Text: Lyndsay Jensen
I don’t know about you, but every now and again, I need a reset. Like right now, as I sit typing my eds note, I'm one day away from taking my summer holiday. I can't wait to switch off, unwind and spend time with my family. Resetting your brain could be after finishing a project or achieving a goal. My goal was to get The International back into print, and I'm so proud it's finally happening for this issue. Yay team! So, to help those of you still in holiday mode or those of you who simply just need to refocus, here are my four simple steps to achieve this. Now I just need to follow my own advice!
#1 Re-clarify your why
Some people call this your vision, others, your five-year plan. Either way, you need to take your thinking up a level and look at the bigger picture of your life. For some people, this is easy – they know exactly what they want. For others, it can be confronting and daunting. A few questions you can ask yourself are:
What are the huge things that are important to you in this phase of your life?
What would you regret most if you didn’t do it?
Who do you feel a little jealous about when you hear about their success?
(This can be a clue as to what you might really want out of life.)
Imagine yourself in five years and think about how old you’ll be and at what stage your
family will be at. What do you want your every day to look like?
#2 Write down your goals
Once you have an idea of what you want your future to look like, get really specific and actually write down your goals. Decide how to time frame them – will they be one-year, 6-months or even 3-years? Goals that are too long-term tend to be quickly forgotten and don't inspire any immediate action. On the other hand, goals that are too near-sighted lack the bigger picture vision. A good compromise is to set one-year goals and then break them down into 3 monthly, or even monthly targets.
A trap that many of us fall into is having too many goals. Even though you think you can work on lots of things at once, the fewer objectives you have, the more likely you are to achieve them. That's not to say you should only have one, but having 20 is definitely too many.
#3 Create a new to-do list
Take your goals, and write down your to-do list of all the immediate things that need doing for each purpose. Don't be tempted to look at the to-do list you might already have running - throw it out! The idea here is to start anew – with your goals top of mind.
Some people like to take each goal and write down each micro-action that will be needed to achieve that goal, but I prefer to write down about a week or two worth of actions that are the most important.
#4 Write your today list
Finally, take that list and write out your today list. These are the three or so things that you are actually going to do today. Be careful not to be too ambitious, it's far better to have success and feel over-accomplished, rather than feel like you're failing. So set yourself up to succeed, and remember, you can also do more than is on your list if you finish it – so it's an excellent place to start
We hope you enjoy seeing us back in print, and paging through our latest issue - just a friendly reminder to keep up your hygiene if you're sharing the paper with others. Stay safe everyone and good luck with back to school and work!