Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

How to Create a Goal that Moves Your Mind, Body & Spirit

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Sometimes a goal is much more than a bunch of colorful sticky notes on a bulletin board. It goes beyond setting goals, making plans, get to work, stick to it, and reach goal. Find out more why.

Sometimes a goal is much more than a “GOAL!!!”

It took me a long time to understand this fully and completely, with my whole heart. Recently I created a goal about travel. No, it isn’t about the Top 50 Destinations to reach before I turn 50, it is a goal about how I want to experience traveling.

It is stated in the present AND it is part of my overall life vision for the next ten years. Here is how I wrote my goal:

Travel is regular, sacred, joyful, smooth sailing and extra comfy.

Imagine my delight when the goal first came to fruition within two months of writing it. That trip became a good model for future successes with this same goal.

Last Fall I joined a book club. This is not unusual, I have a propensity for joining book clubs. I love books, I enjoy hanging out with bookish people and this particular book club filled a different niche – it is an empowered women book club. It only meets once a quarter so why not? I have a goal to read 52 books this year, so adding another book club helps me to keep my reading choices unique and fresh because they aren’t necessarily what my hands would reach for first.

I was also meeting some brand-new-to-me people.

One of these younger women recommended a book to me by Rachel Hollis called, “Girl, Stop Apologizing.” I quickly discovered the writing voice of the author is not one that is appealing to me. Her personality was not one that was appealing to me. Her content was extremely familiar and I might have put it down and forgotten it under other circumstances, but since it was an ebook I checked from the library, I breezed though it grumbling much of the way until…. Rachel Hollis wrote of crafting a ten-year-vision plan.

At first I scoffed at this. Let’s be real, I am too old to be reading this book by the chirpy Rachel Hollis whose other New York Times Best Seller was “Girl, Wash Your Face.” Furthermore I am too old to be writing a ten-year-plan.

“I almost died in October” seems to be a common refrain for me lately.

There was something in her message, though, something that compelled me to consider and complete a list of ten separate goals to make up my ten year vision plan.

That one small yet not small action has changed everything for me.

Twenty-two-year-old Emma sits at a kitchen table in Flagstaff with her two elderly Grandparents. The sun is streaming in through the window. Everyone is smiling and happy. Traveling to visit family is important, always.

Last week I returned from visiting my parents in Flagstaff. This is something I had wanted to do since last May but never did. In December when I visited Katherine and Donald in New Jersey, I declared I would be going to Flagstaff and nothing would stop me!

I would visit for my birthday! It would be great!

January 29 rolled by and I was still in Bakersfield.

I became even more vehemently determined, possibly because between my visit to my daughter and her husband, I created this goal as a part of my ten-year-vision plan.

Travel is regular, sacred, joyful, smooth sailing and extra comfy.

The thing about a ten-year-vision-plan is it isn’t something “to do later” it is something that is perpetually living and breathing and morphing.

My trip to Flagstaff with my middle daughter, Emma, was the first challenge of this goal. It was my first test of the ten-year-vision plan. I originally wanted to go on this trip alone (which would have insured the “smooth sailing” part of it) but I didn’t want to leave Emma behind.

I wanted to see my parents more than I was going to let a possibility of not smooth sailing or not comfy get in my way.

My elderly parents live in their own home in a neighborhood on the western side of Flagstaff. They bought it “when we were young!” my father said. They were about my age now, which I will gladly claim as young.

My mother now has Parkinson’s Disease and has balance issues and moves much more slowly than she used to move. My father is also much slower. Their daily highlight is going to the senior center for exercise classes. For the most part, they stay home other than that and running errands like going to the grocery store.

This required our daily visits to their home to be much more of a collaborative art of… sacred, joyful, smooth sailing and comfy. My parents didn’t know of my goal, yet they gracefully helped me fulfill it.

No one was rushing, no one had anywhere else to go or anything else to do except be exactly where we were. Everyone was in a good mood and happy to be together.

Emma and I stayed at a nearby motel that included an indoor pool and Jacuzzi and was located next to a bookstore and was close to downtown. We were able to explore what fascinates us – for Emma that meant Vegan dining and an fabulous crystal shop, for me it meant lots of places for haiku writing and photography in tucked away alleys and places with history. I also visited a park and took a short hike I had forgotten I meant to take more than ten years ago.

Do you have a travel goal as a part of your overall life vision?

2020 is the first year I am able to respond with an unabashed “Yes!”

In my ten-year vision plan, my overall travel goal sounds like what you have read repeatedly in this article:

Travel is regular, sacred, joyful, smooth sailing and comfy.

I am thrilled to report we met all of these goal-oriented sign posts during this trip to Flagstaff. The visitwasn’t about sprinting around to see how many places we would visit or doing any particular activity, it was about the quality of the experience.

I’m looking forward to deciding where I will visit next: I have a feeling my nomadic adventures are going to start sooner than I thought – and with this visionary goal crafted, I know it will be achieved in a soulful way.

How may you create and fulfill a travel goal with the same amount of pleasure and ease?

  1. Consider how you would like to feel during your travel.
  2. Consider the sort of memories you would most like to have when your travel is over.
  3. Think about your traveling companions and modify your plans accordingly.
  4. Stay committed to clear communication throughout the experience.
  5. Set your date for travel and start reserving accommodations!

Stop putting off what is most important to you. What October taught me was not only about my mortality, it is about how interconnected we all are – and how much joy the simple things in life bring.

If it will help, commit in the comments to your next travel adventure. Next, return to let me know how it went.

woman in a hiking hat creating mixed media art.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is committed to Eradicate Loneliness through intentional connection, passionate purpose and creative expression. Sign up now to stay connected with the movement and receive inspirational emails to insure you will minimize loneliness for yourself and those you love. Visit EradicateLoneliness now to sign up for free.

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Visionary Goal: The 10 Year Plan for More Standing-Room-Only Audiences

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My ten-year-vision is a living, breathing, ever-present experience every day of my life. I have 10 specific vision-goals I write in my journal or notebook daily. At least three days a week I am writing more on each of the vision goals to deepen and enrich the future and now experience.

Here is the Vision/Goal:

There is standing-room-only at my public appearances.

I am blessed to report I know what it is like to have standing room only crowds at my public appearances and it is less than a month since I started working this ten-year-vision-plan.

I have had standing room only audiences at poetry performances and sell-out crowds in theater productions I’ve been in.

If you have a goal where you have no prior experience, one way to catch a view-experience for it is to attend an event where it is expected to be standing-room-only or may be close to sold out when you purchase tickets. When you are there, imagine yourself on stage instead of in the audience.

Allow the buzz from the crowd to fill you. Record their responses with your phone and refer back to your recordings. Write about the actual experience and then write/envision/visualize yourself in place of whoever is speaking or performing.

I have not had standing room only in places where I have had speaking engagements, book signings or in webinars I have hosted.

For the first time in a long time, I feel excited as I note where I have yet to be successful.

A-ha! The daily review of the ten-year-vision-plan is sinking into my bloodstream. It is powerful because I can remember the energy of the standing=room-only crowds. I can feel into my memory to recall how energizing it was to accept applause and attentive response from  the standing ovation, sold-out show crowds.

Next is what action to take – what goals with measureable results may I bring into place in order to make this vision a reality.

  1. I have been working on my email list. I was on a live chat that got disconnected on Wednesday and on Thursday I joined an email list that does exactly what I want mine to do. This is an example of the energy following the vision. On Wednesday I would not have been able to clearly communicate what I want to customer service. Now, I can communicate clearly by sharing the images I’ve gathered. The more people on my list, the more I may expand and attract audiences. This is exciting!
  2. While this may sound odd, I ordered a new Tri-Pod selfie stick to use in making videos. One of the weaknesses of my old selfie stick was It was perpectually sliding down while I was recording. This new one has a device with a solid clip at various height levels to keep everything stationary. This one change immediately makes me more excited to get back into making videos. Videos build connections. Connections build audiences.
  3. I bought a new domain name that is addressing “my heart’s why” why a-la Simon Sinek and “Start with Why.” My programs, classes and even this article do that, but this new domain carries the name in a perfectly clear sense. (I will share it once it is built which will be soon!)

I am excited to get the site up and running with a welcome video and yes, an email list attached. Because the website is the most direct connection between my why and my message, I can see my audience growing exponentially which leads to – bigger crowds wherever I go.

I have to say these final words to connect back to my past, my present and my future vision: at my second book signing ever, a man came to me with shaking hands and asked me to sign his copy of “Chicken Soup for the Soul of America.” He had been a longtime fan of mine and so believed in my message and my voice that he thought all my books would be sold out when I was there and I would be mobbed by people who would be shaking, like he was.

This man has no idea how inspiring he continues to be for me.

No one from my extended family showed up – and that hurt me – but Paul did, even as nervous as he was to meet me. I didn’t even realize people might be excited to meet me.

My final confession for today is this: I was definitely NOT feeling it as I sat down to write this afternoon. I’m in a mid-afternoon slump. I tucked my naysayer mind off and started to type.

I chose to move forward, with love, and my hope and intention you will as well.

The more you connect with your vision, the more purposeful you will feel and the more passionate action you will be driven to take.

Have you started working on your ten-year-vision yet?

If you haven’t, what is stopping you? If you aren’t comfortable commenting, drop me an email at juliejordanscott at gmail dot com. Let’s have an honest conversation about how your why and what you are up too in this world is too important for you to ignore for a moment longer.

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How One Small Shift Lead to a Powerful, Continual Result

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One of the most recent changes to my daily writing practice is to include writing by hand the ten-year-vision statement I created for my ideal life in the future.  

I think of my vision statement as a ten-year-plan that is similar to a written vision board.

Here’s another thought: I think it would be a great idea for you to try it, too.

Before you turn away, please hear me out. There are numerous reasons I thought making this vision plan sounded crazy. I collected even more reasons it was irrelevant and a stupid way to invest my precious time.

  1. Ten years sounds like an extremely long time to someone who is my age. Seriously – I know how old I will be in ten years.
  2. Ten years seems slightly outlandish considering I almost died a few months ago. Since then, I have been living much more day-to-day. I rarely commit to invitations more than a week in the future, much less a month or a season or a year away.
  3. I’ve spent the last ten years focused very intensely on educational advocacy, especially for my son, and caretaking for other people. I am way out of practice in “creating my dream” or “manifesting my heart’s desires” so doing an exercise like quickly got stamped in my head as ridiculous.

I did it anyway.

This simple yet visionary exercise has made a huge difference in my attitude and my confidence. I am feeling a shift into getting more done right now, today, in more than one aspect of my life. All because I took the time to think about what my life would be like, ideally, in ten years.

I realized as I wrote out my ten-year-vision, I was reconnecting to many of my past hopes and dreams, the ones I buried while I was focused on educational advocacy and serving others not in an intentional way but mostly because needs appeared and I leaped in.

It felt good to take out my old intentions, like rediscovering an old pair of jeans a size smaller than your usual size and they fit and you even look surprisingly good in them!

Here’s a suggestion for you, right now, to connect more with yourself in the here and now if the ten-year-vision feels like too much.

Consider a month from now. Just a month from now.

Consider what you have going on in your life, on your calendar.

Consider what you would most love to see on your calendar if you were living your ideal life.

One example of how this works is when I made a list of my ideal life and I wrote, “lunch with a friend at least once a month.” At the time it seemed like a huge stretch and then it became a lunch and a couple dinners and some coffee with all different friends.

I manifested that ideal and more.

So it doesn’t have to be huge at first.

If you had this as part of your ideal it would be one meal, shared this month. And when you go to that meal, be intentional with your friend.

Talk about subjects that matter to you. (If you would like guidance with that, check out the writing prompts on my blog or the Transformational Questions on my Instagram account and use them to launch into conversational topics).

Maybe the person you would most like to take time with this month is yourself. You may do the same with yourself as I suggested with your friend. “Converse” through writing in your journal or writing a blog post or making a quick video. For the bold among us, I challenge you to make a 5 minute video and share it on facebook, Instagram or youtube or perhaps even go live.

One month from now, what do you want to look back and say, “I did that?” and “I felt that!” and “I am so grateful I did that and I felt that way.”

Julie JordanScott typing a love poem on the edge of a foothill of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Julie JordanScott typing a love poem on the edge of a foothill of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Julie JordanScott is a multi-creative who lives in Bakersfield with her daughter, Emma, in an eighty-year-old house with two palm trees in her yard. She loves writing and reading poetry, sitting by the Kern River and learning new quirky facts about literary grannies and what makes people tick. Her current project is finding ways to end the secret epidemic facing the US – with 60% of Americans affected by it. This love poetry project is another way she is working to eradicate loneliness – more information may be found on how you may be involved in the cause at EradicateLoneliness.com

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