The summer seems to have flown by (doesn’t it always?) and fall will be setting in sooner than we expect. With the start of a new season, and a new school year, lies the opportunity to create or review some goals that we’ve made for the year. Several years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to her “goals bingo sheet” which I thought was a fantastic way to go about setting goals for the months ahead.
To set up your own bingo sheet, take out a blank piece of paper (or spreadsheet, as some of us are more creative with a spreadsheet than with markers and paper!) and picture a bingo card that you’ve played with in the past. Now, In your “goals bingo sheet”, write your most important goal(s) in the center of the page (where the traditional “free space” would go) and fill in the rest of the page with smaller goals that you want to achieve by a certain date. For example, my main goal was completing my MBA this year. My smaller goals for the year include things like taking a cooking class, buying certain stocks, running a 10K, going rock climbing, eating completely organic for 1 week, etc. (Keep in mind that you can repeat a goal more than once on this sheet- for example, if you want to focus on cooking this year, you can have several boxes that say “take a cooking class”.) With every goal that is achieved, you can color in that goal box or place a sticky star over it to mark your progress. When you achieve a full row of goals – you have bingo (feel free to yell “bingo!”) and can reward yourself with something as a kudos-to-me gift (like a new treat from H&M, a great new novel or a relaxing yoga class.) Your goals can be as big or as small as you like, and you can space out your bingo sheet to have as many as you want.
Creating these bingo sheets for the past few years has been a great way for me to keep the important things front and center amongst the daily grind. While I have hit bingo several times, I have yet to achieve an entirely completed bingo sheet; however, at the end of the year I reflect as to why I didn’t achieve some goals (for example, maybe running a marathon after only training for a 5K was a bit too lofty!) and I keep those points in mind for the next round of goal setting. Now that I’ve shared some of my goals and ideas with you, feel free to tell me what your goals are for the rest of the year!