Look At Your Life, Is It A Reflection of Your Efforts?
Off the top of your head what do you think of when you see the word “evidence”? For me, I see evidence like in crime scene investigations. I start to envision some of my favorite tv shows like, Law & Order SVU, Criminal Minds, CSI: Miami, or even Grey’s Anatomy and HOUSE. I think of these shows because in them you need evidence in order to make a conviction or evidence that will lead you to a clearer conclusion about what to do. About if John Doe is the right criminal. About if someone is suffering through many different symptoms and you’re trying to decide which sickness is truly manifesting in that person.
So why can’t our lives be the same? Why can’t we sit down and look at the evidence in our lives to make better and more sound decisions? Why can’t we sit down and evaluate the success and failures to adjust our plans accordingly? You can. You probably already do it, but now I want you to be intentional about it. That’s what this series has been getting at. The whole reason you’re goal setting is to be intentional about the direction in which you want your life to go.
It's Time to “Evaluate the Evidence”
My plan for this series was to be able to push out a new blog post each week for you guys, my readers. I went ahead and did all the research ahead of time. I came up with the series name and even what each week would be about. I planned to write each week one post for the upcoming week. I told myself that one post a week would be easy enough. But I was wrong. I failed in that aspect of my goal. I did not push out posts once a week. More like once every 10-14 days. Mind you I can backdate a post but it doesn't dismiss the fact that I didn’t accomplish what I had set out to do. However, I will look at this as an opportunity to “evaluate the evidence” and to adjust for the future.
If you aren't making any mistakes, it's a sure sign you're playing it too safe. - John Maxwell
Instead of thinking I can just carve out time to write up each blog post per week; I'm going to have to basically write the entire series out beforehand. So that all I have to do is press a button that makes my post go from “draft” to “published”. For me this means being able to take however long I need to create my series just as I want it, and then being able to market it once I'm finished. It keeps you, my readers, more engaged and trusting of the fact that I can be consistent.
But how can I apply this “evaluate the evidence” advice in everyday life?
Each week I send a text to my accountability partner Abigale. Normally this text goes out on a Monday, but life happens and sometimes it goes out whenever we get a chance. I sit down and I really think about what I want to get accomplished that week. Not next week. Not next month or in the next 6 months. That week. Although I'm looking at what can be done that week I am taking into account my ultimate goals. Remember in one of my previous posts I talked about how goals are normally really big and how you have to dissect them into smaller parts? This is what I'm talking about. What are the small tasks that you need to accomplish in order to meet your larger goal? What can you do this week?
So I pause for a moment and I think of all the things I want to accomplish. These elements range from "getting to work by 8:30am three out of five times this week" to "finish reading the rest of my current book". Sometimes my goal for the week is to "take my dog, Zoey, on a walk on Saturday". It seems small but in all honesty these all contribute to bigger goals that I have for myself.
Along with that I send my “Pros” and “Cons” from the week before. Maybe a certain event happened and it was either good or bad. Maybe I didn’t accomplish a certain task on my prior weeks list. Or maybe I need to shout myself out for marking of 2 out of the 6 things that were on my goals list. You have to learn to celebrate the little things!
Either way I am forced to evaluate and analyze what’s happened and then go back and adjust for the coming week. I’m able to be like "you know what I dropped the ball last week. I got lazy". Sometimes I'm able to say "I really overbooked myself. I gave myself too much to accomplish and I ended up feeling overwhelmed instead of being able to be productive as I had wished." Whatever I'm able to gauge from my previous week allows me an opportunity to readjust and be better the following week.
Trying something, even if it does not work, often opens doors that would otherwise have remained closed.
This week I want you to look over last week and evaluate it. Analyze it. Take a moment to decide hey last week was a good week and commend yourself. Or review it and decide how you want to make this week better than the last.