January 2019 – Year of Liz

HEART Goals

By lfreedma@gmail.com | January 23, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Remarkable Women Leaders annual conference, and it was just the recharge I needed to start this new year strong. I could probably write 10 blog posts about all of the lessons I learned at this conference, but one moment sticks out in particular.

Actual footage of me after literally any conference.

You may recall a previous post in which I said a good way to enhance a SMART goal is to make it a stretch goal. I certainly believe there is a lot of truth to that, but I am happy to say I learned yet another way to enhance your current system for setting and achieving goals.

One of the founders of Remarkable Women Leaders and lead speakers at this conference was Kris Taylor. Kris is also the founder of Evergreen Leadership and co-founder of LEAP Consulting; she shared many of her personal and professional experiences, including all the times she has reinvented herself and taken a leap.

In one session toward the end of the day, she led us through an activity in which we created a SMART goal, but first we connected it to what she calls a HEART goal (you can see her original blog post about this here!).

Here is the meat of a HEART goal:

H: Holistic

E: Enduring

A: Aspirational

R: Really Matter

T: Timeless

For example, one of my SMART goals last week was to get back into blogging…you may have noticed I took a *several* week break there…my apologies.

But that’s something I have been thinking about for quite a while, so clearly I needed something else to get me back on track. Simply setting a deadline had not been good enough.

The idea is that a SMART goal is at its very best when it is related to something truly meaningful for you. When I took the time to connect that goal to something bigger, it finally clicked.

Writing this blog does really matter to me; I am proud anytime someone tells me they read it, or shared it with someone else. Most importantly, I really appreciate having an outlet for my ideas so that I can re-imagine them, articulate them, and use them directly in my work.

So it’s safe to say that it worked! Here I am blogging again. Within two days after the conference I had five ideas for new posts to write, all because I took the time to dig a little deeper, and think a little bigger.

And on that note, I leave you with this final thought:

When you put your SMART goal into a greater context, does it help get you closer to something really meaningful for you?

The Art and Science of: The Bucket List

By lfreedma@gmail.com | January 20, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Ah, the bucket list. An old classic.

Although I generally think the new year is a totally arbitrary date (on every single day it has been one year if you think about it), it’s a nice time to dust off your bucket list and make some exciting plans.

My guess is that everyone has had one at some point in their life, in one form or another, whether formal or informal.

My question to you is, how often do you look at it?

And make plans for it?

Is it written down?

As you can probably assume, mine is. And there’s even more than one variation of it. I have it safe and secure in my non-journal. In fact, it was the very first thing I wrote in there.

The big question I had leading up to this post was, does having a bucket list actually work? Most of the information I found was positive, but it turns out there are some people who really hate them.

So here are my most important takeaways when it comes to creating a bucket list:

It should be things that you actually want to do. If you don’t know what to put on it, try to avoid the typical things that appear on everyone else’s. If you do want to do those things (i.e. travel the world, go sky diving, run a marathon, etc.) then put them on there! But don’t feel pressured to choose those things just because everyone else does.
Make sure you regularly ignore your bucket list and live in the moment. This is where the really good stuff happens in life.
Dream big! Even if you don’t cross off every item, it is still pretty amazing to be able to cross off a good chunk of them.

So what’s on mine you ask?

Some of the typical, cliché things you will find on it, some are seemingly easy to cross off, and some will take considerable more effort.

This is a list I have been keeping since I was about 12 years old or so. I went on a cross country road trip with my grandparents, and decided that I wanted to travel to all 50 states. And so it began.

Below is a breakdown of my bucket list…

Things I have already crossed off:

Go skydiving
Fly a kite
Become a mother
Eat caviar
Fly a plane
Watch the Chicago Cubs win the World Series
See the running of the bulls

And the things I am still working on:

Visit all 50 states
Visit all 7 continents
Earn a PhD
Have a conversation in American Sign Language
Take singing lessons
Ride on a motorcycle
Visit a dark sky park
See a crater

And a few things that are on there, that I have no control over, but really hope they happen:

Watch the Chicago Bears win the Super Bowl
Witness a baby being born

I love my bucket list so much that when my daughters started telling me things they wanted to do, I made a bucket list just for them. Here’s what they have told me so far:

Ride a horse
Ride in an airplane
Ride on a train
Ride on a school bus

You can see their interests are related to riding things.

But you better believe I am taking their list seriously. This February they are going on their first airplane, and this summer I am going to be intentional about taking them on a train ride to Chicago.

To end, here are some lessons I have learned about the bucket list:

Be intentional. This summer I am going to a dark sky park in northern Michigan, no matter what. The last couple of years I have put it off because my daughters were very young, the weather wasn’t perfect, whatever. This year, I am going.
Get your family on board. Getting to all 50 states is very important to me, and I am grateful that my family has been supportive of it. So when it was time for a vacation, we were all adventurous together – thanks for taking me to Alaksa, mom and dad!
If you have it actually written down and an opportunity arises, you are more likely to do it. When the offer came my way to speak at another university, I was most likely going to yes, but the fact that it was in North Dakota (a state I hadn’t been to yet) made it a sure thing. And while I was there I didn’t just work; I made an intentional effort to explore, which I might not have done if it weren’t on my bucket list.

So there you have it! Get your list and make it happen!

And on that note, a thought experiment:

What’s on your bucket list? And when will you make time for those things to happen?