Category: Career & Life

Why you need to set your Goals and Intentions for 2019 NOW
Stylemesisteradmin
December 3, 2018

Why you need to set your goals for 2019 NOW

If I said to you that if you set your goals and intentions on the 1st of January 2019 you would be more likely to fail you would accuse me of setting negative intentions and sending out negative vibes into the universe thus actually causing the failure in the first place.

  • The truth is that if you sit down on the 1st of January you are more likely to:
  • Set general goals rather than be specific to what your real needs are
  • You will set the same goals as last year
  • Your friends and family will be more influence as everyone is talking goals
  • You won’t put enough effort into plans and are more likely to fail due to that

And the list goes on.

To set goals and intentions that you can actually achieve you need to actually work out many different elements.

To get you going here are questions I ask clients:

  • What is the outcome you want to achieve?
  • Why do you want to achieve this?
  • How much time do you realistically have over the 12 months to achieve this?
  • Can you afford to reach this goal?
  • Is your goal realistic?

I then get them to write out their goal.

And then BREAK IT DOWN.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say Sara wants to open up her own Bakery.
She wants to open it as she already bakes from home so this is progression.
She has £10,000 investment available from family.

That’s all awesome.

  • What Sara needs to start with is:
  • Where is there a demand for a bakery in her area.
  • How many sales does she need to make to actually make this a realistic business venture?
  • How much can she expect to pay in rent?
  • What are the bills like?
  • What is her current cash flow like with business.
  • Whilst she’s working on opening her business can she afford to hire someone to run the home business?

What costs can she expect in kiting out the shop?

As you can see Sara needs to do a LOT OF RESEARCH. In my opinion it’s the most important stage that can make or break a business idea.

As Sara works she needs to fit this in around her business hours.

Once she blocks out her work time, family time and other commitments she’ll know how much time she has to actually carry out the research (and also see if she has enough capacity to do this during the actual year or will she need to consider a 18 month plan).

Once she knows this she can break down what she needs to research and slot it into her calendar and tick off each task.

Steadily Sara will see her tasks go down and she’ll progress steadily towards her goal.

But if Sara sets a general goal and just writes down “my goal is to set up a bakery in 2019” she wouldn’t know where to start. She’s literally setting herself up to fail and come end of 2019 she’ll be setting the same goal and potentially repeating the same mistakes.

So what do you need to do today?

  • Sit down and think about what you have achieved this year and what you set out to actually do during the year. Consider which of these goals you want to set for 2019 (if there are any).
  • Break down the goal considering the time you have to achieve it (be realistic so you have more of a chance of achieving the goal).
  • Put dates in your diary.
  • Schedule ‘check ups’ during the year on your goal. I suggest once every 3 months. That was if you are behind schedule you can either look at catching up or potentially moving dates around to accommodate this. Either way we are looking at increasing your chances of successfully completing your goals.

It seems like a lot of work to do however this method increases your control on the goal achieving process and also will increase your confidence with goal setting as your success rate too.

And once you’ve done that you can sit back and watch others set out goals with no structure on the 1st of January 2019 and watch a lot of them give up by 1st of February.

What are your goals and intentions for 2019? Share them below.

My top 10 items for surviving the Winter blues…
Alliyah Dawud
October 15, 2018

Preparing for the Winter BLUES

I try to love and embrace all seasons I really really do! But I do suffer from SAD (Seasonal affective disorder). So basically when it’s cold outside, dark and dreary it gets scary for me. I used to spend the majority of the cold months indoors miserable and feeling low until I discovered I could work towards helping to REDUCE the side affects.

Since then my Winters have improved. A lot.

Here is my Winter survival kit

1) SAD Lamp
Small and compact this lamp is awesome. The colder shorter days result in less daylight which isn’t good for SAD/winter blues sufferers.
I switch it on whilst I’m working (ensuring it’s set to the right level to actually do it’s magic on me). Half an hour a day and it contributes towards happy vibes for me.
Price: available on Amazon from £39.99

2) Vitamin B 12 & Vitamin C
In all honesty I try my best to stay on top my Vitamin intake but it can slip. From September I try my damn hardest to take Vitamin B 12 to ensure my body can fight dreaded Fatigue. It’s a must. I usually feel a burst of energy from a month into taking this suppliament regualary.
I also ensure I take Vitamin C to fight Winter bugs.
*Always consult a specialist before starting a new suppliment*

3) Qi Qong (Life Energy Cultivation) Yoga sessions
Great for balancing you, relaxing you and taking stress away. There’s no pretzel moves…it’s about flow. And it’s awesome.

4) Essential oil roller ball (self blended combinations)
To perk myself up I use essential oil blends. Citrus blends rock and are an instant lift.

5) Meditation
Because if you can think it, you can do it. Meditating clears my thoughts and helps me tune into the source (God) and that is a blessing for me.

6) Prayer beads (tasbeeh)
Dikr (repeating suppliments) calms me no end. It also lifts me. So it’s crutial for me personally to do more of it in the darker months.

7) A brisk walk (no more than 10-15 minutes a day)
Yes it’s cold. But what’s the point of having an awesome coat if I’m not going to ware it? A bit of fresh air is super important for health.

8) Journaling
Noting down how you feel and reflecting on things is a major way of keeping ‘tags’ on yourself. I recommend it to everyone

9) Gratitude Diary
Because believe me when you are feeling ‘down’ it’s easy to forget the blessings. So I ensure I remind myself daily!

10) Manifesting Box
I reread my letters, notes etc to keep focus on my goals. Why? I don’t want to fall off the band wagon, lower my vibes and slow down my life. I keep focus.

 

That’s my list. What’s on yours? Leave your comments below.

 

Love,

Alliyah

How to create a Master To Do List
Alliyah Dawud
October 24, 2017

How to create and manage a Master To Do List

That endless to do list. It gets under your skin. You feel like you are constantly trying to fight the need to do things and little gets done. Urgh. And every week just as you think you can cut something off the list you need to add another nine. Oh dear. Life is like this. It’s a mountain of tasks that never seem to get completed.

We see all this posts of organised women showing us beautifully crafted completed lists (on equally pretty notepaper). We cry into our soggy cereal with our so-called waterproof mascara running down our full foundation faces.

So really apart from selling your kidney and paying a temporary PA to come and work for you is there any real way of combating the To Do List dilemma of the 21st century lifestyle?

You betch’ya!

Really? And you don’t have to research the dark market and sell your organs either! Yay!

Welcome to the world of Master Lists. A Master List is simply but a list of tasks you need to complete. They could be tasks such as ordering wallpaper, getting someone to fix the driveway gate, order Birthday cards….everything you need to do. You put these all on a list that is designed to be a running list. In other words you won’t ever complete the list in your lifetime. Scary thought but it’s being realistic. We all have responsiblities and our tasks are always being added to. So this list is basically the list that will help you create weekly more manageable lists you will be completing.
So this list holds all the tasks you need to do, with an ideal projected date that you want the task completed by.

My list also has additional notes on it. E.g. I usually buy presents throughout the year so I record the location of items in the book. You could also colour code things to make things more organised. This is about making your life easier so modify it to reflect this.

So what do you need?

The ideal list is below:

2X notebooks/jotters/list making notepads (I use an A5 notebook to create my Master list and a smaller one for my weekly list)
NOTE: If you are self employed and wish to create a list for work too double the supplies.

Additional notepad to make notes etc/Sticky notes

Writing supplies

Your diary, calendar, or other time planning methods you use to plan your time.

PATIENCE

At least half an hour to get going (this is an on going project)

Getting started:

1)So you are serious about tackling this. Hurrah! First thing is first. Write down everything you need to do. Like literally. If you are creating a master list for work and home life you’ll need to write them down on the appropriate notebook/paper.

2) Now go through the lists. Is there anything on the lists that doesn’t belong there? Anything that needs doing immedately e.g. booking Hospital appointments or buying Grandmas birthday card and flowers for next week need to be put on an immediate list (you won’t be needing this once you get into the Master to do list system but to get you going you’ll need it). Is there something on your list that is on there because someone else is shying away from their responsiblity? Now is the time to delegate that task. Reducing the tasks will help you on the next step.

3) Now draw two lines down the page of your notebook that will be your Master List. Leave a large column to write the task. You need an additional column to record the date of when you wish to complete the task by and the final column is for ticking off the task.

4) Transfer your tasks to the Master to do list. That’s everything! EVERY.little.thing.

5) Now look at your schedule for next week. How’s it looking? How much time do you realistically have? Got a number? Great. Now comes the big part….

6) Look at your Master to do list. Look for tasks that can be completed in the time you have available and write these tasks on your WEEKLY to do list.
By understanding how much time you have and not over stretching yourself you are reducing the chances of failure and increasing the chances of things getting down.

7) By the end of the week you should have completed your weekly to do list. Tick off anything you’ve completed. Anything that hasn’t been completed can either be re-added to the Master to do list or to the follow weeks list.

8) At the beginning of the week (or on the day you do your weekly planning) create next weeks list.
NOTE: you’ll also be adding things to your Master list. RELAX. This is the idea. The Master List is continiously updated. The idea isn’t to complete everything it’s to be in control and understand what needs doing.
Your weekly list (that you’ve created from your Master List) is the list that will be completed on a weekly basis. This list helps you chart your progress too and gives you a sense of goal completion.

9) Repeat the above steps until it becomes habit or you find another system that suits you better.

Additional notes:

This system can work equally well for couples and families. If you are creating a master list for families you can create weekly lists for family members too.

If you’ve been living in an ocean of incompleted to do lists for as long as you can remember don’t panic if it takes a while to do used to this system. Keep it up for a month and evaluate if it works for you.

Any comments or question; let me know.

 

How to BRAIN DUMP
Alliyah Dawud
October 11, 2017

Decluttering your BRAIN aka having a Brain dump

Okay so vulgar name aside if you are anything like me and have hundreds of thoughts going on in your head this could be your knight in glamourous shining armour (if you need saving that is).

So the idea behind a brain dump is to get back to basics and translate everything buzzing around in your head onto paper. In a world run by technology we are pretty much getting back to basics.

So what you do is you take a piece of paper (I use A4) and set a stop clock to give me 15 minutes. I then ignore the world an and write down everything that pops into mind. The theory is that if it’s popping into your head it needs to come out.

So you write down everything. It would be names, feelings, things you need to do. Things you’ve been putting off. EVERYTHING.

Once the 15 minutes is up you have two options:

1) leave the brain dump and come back to it later (in the evening/next day/next week)

2) create FOUR lists:
Must prioritise (e.g. Doctors appointments, Gas heater servicing, updating contact details with Schools, insurance renewals etc)
Things that must be done within a set timeframe (I usually give myself 4-6 weeks for this depending on how many things are on the list). This could be things like getting quotes for a gardening job, having winter things dry cleaned for storage etc. Things that need doing but if they are delayed they won’t have huge consiquences.
Things that can go on your Master To Do List (see article here on this List).
EMOTIONAL/Personal: feelings/conversations that need to be had etc all go on this list.

3) Now go through these lists. Ask yourself the following questions:

Do you really need to do all these tasks yourself?
Can you delegate them?
Have you taken on more than you can cope with (note this down and don’t repeat this to just torture your soul).
Which tasks can you do the quickest to get your progress flowing.

Remove anything from the lists that you delegate out or shouldn’t really be on there. Be ruthless baby. Time is money.

3) Now you have to work through these lists. Be realistic with time frames. If you don’t give yourself time frames that are manageable you are setting yourself up for failure. Don’t torture yourself.

4) Come back to the lists when you are organising your week to see which tasks can be completed.

5) Repeat the brain dump as and when required. Treat this as a regular exercise that helps with your brain decluttering. Your lists may never be empty but this helps put things into perspective.

Have you tried Brain Dumping? How did you find it? Is it something you do on a regular basis to keep life organised? Share your pearls of wisdom below.

 

Love,

 

Alliyah