Setting Intentions, Goals & Focus for Sustainable Success

A Model for Setting Goals, Intentions & Focus to Create a Whole Life & Sustainable Success

Posted January 15, 2024

In Burnout & Overwhelm, Cyclical Living, Success, Wisdom Blog, Working Differently, Year Ends and New Years

How can you do your new year intention setting and goal making in a way that leads to sustainable success & a whole life throughout the year?

First, we take a stand to create realties that support us a whole human, with a dynamic life, with diverse demands and desires.

Then we redefine work, wellbeing & success through our choices, voices, and courage to do things differently.

Third, we don’t try to maintain work/life balance, which is an equation for burnout and perpetual stress & failure. We embrace we have diverse demands and desires, so how we vision and set intentions encompasses all parts of us and our lives.

In order to create a truly sustainable reality, we need different models that give us alternatives to the former, unsustainable reality.

When you think of setting goals, intentions and focuses for the year, you also want to be asking yourself “How do I prevent the overwhelm, burnout and self-sacrifice, by how I set my intentions and goals at the start of the year?”

We shift our model and our mindset at a root level and replace the work/life balance equation. Otherwise the goals you set and the how you go about focusing on them throughout the year will keep you stuck in the over-culture’s main imprint of Work/Life Balance, which doesn’t work.

The alternative model is called the 8 Realms of a Whole, Harmonized Life – see the glyph below from Overwhelmed and Over It, Chapter 2 – Release Maintaining Work/Life Balance, Embrace Cultivate Harmony within Your Dynamic Diverse Life.

Just like a compass, with 4 major directions and 4 minor directions, all directions are needed, and are present. although you are not going in all the directions at the same time.

Like an orchestra, with different instruments, you have different sections/realms of your whole life, and when the parts play together in harmony, you can move between them. Just like a conductor plays different sections louder or softer during a set, you shift focus and energy on the parts throughout the year, your life comes into more harmony. You can read more about this model in Chapter 2.

For this post today, we are focused on how you can use the whole-life design model of the 8 realms to expand, elevate and shift how you vision and set goals and intentions for the year.

The human brain cannot focus on more than 4 things at a time. The number 4 is structure. Models with 4 parts support you to create things that are sustainable, supportive and stable in your life.

Look at the model below. This is what we use in Elevated Leadership and the Feminine Wisdom Way to vision and stay focused on what matters throughout the year. It has 4 parts that encompass the 8 realms of a whole, harmonized life, which by nature, will lead you to creating a whole life & sustainable reality. We call this ,model the “Sustainable Success Focalizer & Co-Creator.” We use it for all the work we do with individuals and teams yearly and quarterly to take Power Pauses to reflect, expand, and refocus.

Below are descriptions of each of the 4 realms to co-create Sustainable Success & a Whole Life

Work in the World: Vocation, Career, Care-Giving, Self-Expression & Sacred Work. The projects, initiatives, desires and experiences in your: job/livelihood + parenting/care-giving + mentoring/volunteering + purpose/mission/sacred work + career-path/self-expression (because all of these take work!) Note: Sacred work is a term we use intentionally to re-define what work is, to bring value to the invisible, and to bring language to what is at the center of why you do what you do. Sacred means devoted to wholeness. Sacred work is what you are devoted to creating, causing & calling forth.
Web of Relationships: Personal, Professional, Individuals & Communities – Your personal relationships include your family, friends, partners, small groups and communities. Your professional relationships include your team, colleagues, mentors, councils, and communities.
Foundation of Wellbeing: Health, Wealth, Home & Practice. Your health is your personal wellbeing + vitality… your wealth your financial flow + reserves… your home the space + place you live. Your practices are the consistent things you do daily/weekly for your BODY to keep you healthy, MIND to keep you clear, HEART to keep you calm, centered & connected to yourself, and SPIRIT to keep your energy light, and your passion & sense of meaning strong.
Presence – Personal Growth, Desires, Joy & Radiance – The being of you, how you show up, evolve from the inside out, and make a difference through your presence. The things that really matter to you, and that bring you joy.