LifeCircle 2012: Stepping forward

OK, OK, I am more than a little bit late with this. Between setting the task and the day that the linky should have been published, I found out that a project I thought I'd have a couple of weeks to complete had to be done and dusted by Friday and I had to put in double my usual hours and everything went out of the window. As much as we can make plans, life sometimes throws a curveball and destroyed all our carefully laid plans. I've had a couple of days out since and I'm trying to catch up with the lack of blogging I did last week.

Many apologies if you have been waiting to link up. The linky will be here today but there will be no new task tomorrow. Instead, I'll post a new task on 7th April over the Easter weekend but this will be a longer task and you will get more than a week to do it as I have the perfect task to fill that time plus it can be our Easter break.
So, how have I been doing with my Life Plan? At the moment, I'm kind of stuck. I am making progress with work but I am waiting to find out how much work I will have over the coming months, so I'm waiting on other people. I am trying to be slightly more proactive at it as I need to be earning money so I'm trying to do more to secure the work I need to move me onwards.My task for the next week is to clarify this but it's not always easy when relying on others for answers.

My main frustration is with my health / fitness. I seem to be stagnant with my diet - I do well for a few weeks an then it goes to pot. Well, not actually to pot; it's just I'm not tracking my intake and I know that means I eat more as a result. I really really need to get a grip and yet I'm facing two weeks of Easter holidays. Recording my intake is what works best for me and I know I have to do it.

The other things I had on my lifeplan largely depend on my earnings and how I do workwise. As ever, all things lead back to money so I really need to sort that out before I can make other spending plans, especially on the car front. I have to do something about that before my tax runs out this year in August.

So, how are you doing? What have you identified as going well or going badly? What do you really need to sort out now to keep your progress going? I'm sure you all have lovely posts for me to read and again, I'm really sorry this is so late.

You have plenty of time to link up. This will stay open until 20th April (to allow people to catch up if they miss this post publishing.

Looking forward to reading your posts, and see you again on Saturday 7th for the next task.

LifeCircle 2012 - Next steps

I've just realised this is the 10th week of LifeCircle, 2012 edition. We are well into our 3rd month of moving our lives onwards. I'm wondering if this is a good point to take stock, and stir up some more action.

Not only is this our 10th task, the next week is the start of Spring. If you believe the Met Office, Spring actually started on 1st March but the more traditional first day of Spring is next Wednesday, which is the day before I open the next linky.

A few weeks back, we wrote a Life Plan  which was meant to throw up issues and things to do NOW. We've also worked on some time management techniques and that should be helping us move forward.

But is it enough?

What I want you to do this week is review how far you've come with your LifePlan, remind yourself that you're nearly a quarter of the way into your first year, and ask yourself if you feel you've moved at least a quarter of the way towards where you want to be in all areas of your life in the "one year from now" section of your LifePlan. Can you identify pressing matters you need to tackle that you've overlooked? If your progress has fallen behind, how can you get it back on track? Even if you're ahead of schedule, can you identify something that you could be tackling to keep you ahead of the game? Has something else cropped up that needs tackling before making further progress? What 3 things do you need to be tackling in the next week or so that you can actually achieve in that time? What one big thing do you need to complete soon to keep you on track? How do you feel about that?

Questions, questions - but they are all there to help direct your thinking before you do some blogging! Feel free to go off piste if you need to on this one - we are all different, facing varied issues and we might need to take different approaches sometimes. There is no right answer for all of us.

As usual, come back after Thursday when the linky will be open and will remain open until nearly Easter. Talking of Easter, LifeCircle will be taking a break over the holidays so I'll be setting a longer task soon.

LifeCircle 2012: Life Plan

I guess you've come here to read my life plan. I've written it before. It therefore might look pretty similar to that as it's only a few months later. Remember, it's ideal lives we're talking about so I'm hoping you're all using lots of positive language in your posts. I shall be checking your work later, she said in her best schoolmistress voice.

We'll start, as before, with five years from now. By then, Monkey will be 11, nearly 12 and Missy Woo 10. Monkey will have just started at high school, one that we believe is right for him. Missy will be in Year 6 and due to follow her brother the following year.

LifeCircle 2012: Let's do a lifeplan

I hope you're all busy beavering away with your actions you set after this week's post. We're going to put that to one side because if you remember, I gave you TWO WEEKS to complete your actions. We will return to that later.

No, this week, we are going to return to another exercise that we did before - writing a life plan. If you did this last year, feel free to skip and come back next week. However, you may find it useful to revisit the life plan you wrote then and review how you feel about it and whether, already, you need to change it. Life plans are living documents and they are only plans - things may change, life circumstances may change, you may change. There is therefore no shame in changing it.

If you didn't do it before, I'm not going to write all the instructions again - they are here. And they haven't changed. So there! You'll be using the results from your Wheel of Life exercise but if you're joining late, you may want to whizz back and do the exercise before you do this as it will help you, although you can write a life plan without it.

As I wrote before, you don't have to share the full details of your life plan with anyone. Give as much detail about it as you wish to give when you write about this exercise. But do ask yourself these questions:

Did this exercise throw up an issue you need to be tackling now that you've never realised is quite so urgent? How does your ideal life look?
Did it surprise you?
Has it spurred you into taking action already?
How does having a clear vision of your ideal life in 5 years time make you feel - about your life now, and your future?

Write your post, then come back here next Thursday and link up, as ever.

Good luck, everyone. Have fun life planning. 

The Life Circle - The Life Plan and Week 3

So, this week, we're all writing our life plans. I'm going to share with you as much of mine as you will read. Remember, it's our ideal lives we're talking about so it's all going to be good, right? Right?!

Starting from furthest away, we'll start with five years from now. By then, Monkey will be 11 and Missy Woo 10. Monkey will have just started at high school, one that we believe is right for him. Missy will be in Year 6 and due to follow her brother the following year. (And yes, it's my life and I've started talking about my children; they are an important part of my life).

Life Circle - Week 2

Time to set another task! Boy, that has come round quick. I hope you found doing the Wheel of Life useful last week. The comments I've received suggest that you did and hopefully it identified some areas for you to work on. Thanks to everyone that took part and hello to those who are reading but not necessarily taking part. Although it helps to do all the tasks, you don't have to take part in everything and I really won't mind if you join in later or for a particular task. If you can offer other participants support and constructive comments, I know they will appreciate it.

What we are going to do this week is think a little longer term. We're going to work on the start of a Life Plan. Now, even to me, that sounds horribly organised and a bit control freaky but trust me on this. It won't be the 43 page life plan document that I saw a woman appearing on a television programme referring to a few years back. It will be what you want to make of it, because this is YOUR life.