true wheel tuesday! week 2: goals

 the hub of the wheel

welcome to week 2 of true wheel tuesdays. last week we worked with the basic assessment, which was simple and straightforward enough, i hope. this week we will work with some more simple exercises and see what happens. it’s always like that when truing a wheel…all wheels are different, and the work becaomes very individual very fast. and yet all wheels are the same and they can all be approached the same way, to great result. if that seems contradictory, well, at least i’m not trying to sell you on a new investment strategy!

heart like a wheel

some say the heart is just like a wheel
when you bend it you can’t mend it
–anna mcgarrigle

now obviously i disagree a bit, and yet there is some power in the poetry. hearts are fragile and mysterious things, as are our lives, and it’s important to come to any sort of mending work with a healthy respect for this. we are bound to come up against some wounds in this process. we are bound to come up against feelings of un-fixability. and we are bound to feel some things that we have been avoiding for a long time.

ultimately this is heart work, the work of learning to be kind to yourself, so it’s important to approach this work like you were approaching a very tender young babe, your tender open-hearted self. take your time, be patient, listen with an open heart: all will be revealed!

the importance of goals

as i like to say, it’s not what you think! and we’ll get to that. first let’s look at our goals, and then let’s look at what they can show us!

so…let’s take out another sheet of paper and get to work! create an outline roughly resembling the following, and then we can have at it!

my very own goals work sheet!

one month from today

1. [goal]
2. [goal]
3. [goal]

three months from today

1. [goal]
2. [goal]
3. [goal]

six months from today

1. [goal]
2. [goal]
3. [goal]

one year from today

1. [goal]
2. [goal]
3. [goal]

okay then! have at it. you can use your worksheet from last week to help you out, or you can just wing it. don’t take too long with this however. no procrastinating with in-depth analysis. just dive in and scribble nine goals for yourself. remember…you never have to do any of these. it’s just a harmless piece of paper on which to project some thoughts that you are having right where you are sitting now!

that wasn’t too hard was it?

okay then. now for the analysis. this is simple enough. look at the list of spokes that we put together for last week’s exercise. determine which spoke each of your goals belongs to. some spokes may not make the cut. some may have more than one goal attached.

now use a colored pen or marker to mark along the spoke that each of your goals is attached to. now you have a visual image of the areas of your life that you want to work on, along with your previous assessment of how satisfied you were with this area of your life.

• did you tend to focus on the areas of dis-satisfaction? 
• the areas of satisfaction. 
• or was there no rhyme or reason to the goals that you set?
• were your goals spread out over the areas of your life?
• clustered into just a few?
• do you see any patterns in the time scheme?

that’s enough for today i think. just let things spin about for the next week and be sure to take notes of any insights you get. it’s always good to have something to refer to! next week we’ll look at some of the things we can learn from our goals.