Goals with Soul

Goal setting, New Years resolutions, vision boards, and words-of-the-year fill my social media feeds this time of year. The start of a new year is the perfect time to reflect on the past and dream of the future. And we did just that ourselves recently at the Haven Collective Goals with Soul workshop led by Victoria Strelnikova.

So much of what you read and what’s been drilled into our minds about goal setting can feel very masculine and out of alignment with how we feel. So this workshop flipped those ideas on their head and focused entirely on feelings instead.

Here’s a recap so you can create goals with soul in your life. You’ll need a journal or blank sheet of paper and favorite writing utensil. Find a quiet space where you can get centered, maybe meditate, and give yourself permission to go within, trusting your intuition and listening to your body.

7 Areas of Your Life to Create Goals with Soul

There are 7 areas that you can choose to visualize to create goals with soul. They are: physical wellness, mental wellness, relationships & connections, spirituality, career & work, finance & abundance, and mission & purpose. You’ll want to visualize each separately in this exercise to get the most out of it, repeating the exercise for as many of the areas as you’d like. For each, complete the following three steps for the exercise:

1. Reflect. Think about how you got to where you are. What was this past year like? What went well & what did not? How do you feel? What things would you like to change? Write it all down without judgement. Stream of consciousness is best.
   Select one of the 7 areas that you’d like to focus on first and start writing how you feel you’re doing in that area now.

2. Visualize. Start to create a vision of how you’d like to feel, look, and live as it relates to your chosen area. Write it down as it comes to you.

3. Affirmations. Write an “I am ___” statement. Look over your writings and start to pull out words so you can get very specific. Complete clarity is needed so you can create an affirmation that’s powerful; programming your mind to go there.
   An example: “I am superior to negative thoughts and low actions.”

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your World

We are what we believe and this exercise has the power to re-wire your brain so that you can change your world for the better, raising the level of feel-good hormones and positive thought neurons. Think, speak, and act on your affirmations regularly and you’ll break old patterns of negative self-talk and truly go after the life you want. These affirmations are your new goals with soul.