Do you ever look back on a phase of your life like "what just happened?" When you start to think about it, it looks like a big giant blur. You had more than your fair share of to do's, work drama, appointments, parties, commitments, etc. Maybe you even set goals but it'd be a stretch to say you felt successful in reaching your goals. Or, maybe last week you took me up on how to complete a mid-year personal review and it's not just a 'phase' of your life that's felt like this, but longer… like half a year… or *gulp* longer…
I've been here before friends. I eventually got sick of half-assing my life and letting my life control me vs. me taking control of my life. So, I started completing what I call a "Quarterly Personal Retreat". A Quarterly Personal Retreat, QPR for short, is a period of time spent reflecting on the last 90 days and setting goals for the next 90 days. I've done this once a quarter for the last few years and each time, the amount of "why is my life a BLUR" goes down exponentially.
This week's blog post is a refresher on how to complete a Quarterly Personal Retreat and 3 tips on how to make the next 3 months full of purpose and intention.
First, let's go back to basic. Click here to learn the basics of completing your own Quarterly Personal Retreat. Fill out the form below to download the Quarterly Personal Retreat Guide. It helps to walk you through the process, and the best part is the mid-point reflection is built right in to it so you can keep all your notes in one place!
1. Push yourself to think in terms of purpose vs. shoulds.
Learn from my rookie mistake: your QPR will fail you and leave you with more of the same if you center all of your goals around what you think your life SHOULD look like instead of a genuine life of purpose. My early QPR's were so full of stuff I thought looked good on paper. I'd say about 10-15% of my early goals actually were in alignment with purpose and being intentional with my life.
2. Challenge yourself to listen to your heart more than your head during this process
Let's say you get to the "fun" section of your QPR and you start filling it with "happy hour 1x/week with my friends", "one night out per weekend" and "join a new volleyball league" but while you are writing out these goals, you feel a huge knot in your stomach. Stop right in that moment and ask yourself "Is this knot from Chipotle?" If not, ask yourself "what is causing me to feel like 'this is not right for me'?". Don't fill your goals up with a bunch of shit you hate. Stop saying yes to shit you hate!
3. Set an intention.
Ok, duh. If you want to be more purposeful and more intentional, you should have an intention. Is it really that simple? If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out this blog post from earlier this year. It's about setting a monthly intention but just extend it out over 90 days. You'll need to get your visioning hat on for this part. My intention for the next 90 days is to "stop resisting life". Wow - that's a big one. More to come on that in a future post…
Good luck, friends! And remember, "your level of success, will rarely exceed your level of personal development" - Jim Rohn.