Hello my fellow bloggers and blog-lovers! If you’re new here, welcome, and if you’ve been around for awhile, welcome back. You can call me Elle, or by my pen name E.L. Jayne, and I’m one of the writers here on the talented team at Pointless Overthinking.
This winter I was accepted into my top choice for a graduate program to study Philosophy & Economics in Germany. My program starts in October, and since June I started traveling in the middle east and moved onto eastern Europe, aiming to enrich my cultural palate, open my mind to new experiences, and try some local wines.
The point of this article is not to share my favorite chardonnay recommendations or travel destinations, although I can if popularly requested, but to share my life philosophy of writing down your goals.
“Energy flows where attention goes.”
In April 2020, like many of us at the onset of the pandemic, I sat down to reflect on my life: why I was living where I was living, why I was working where I was working, which goals I wanted to achieve, etc.
I wrote down all the goals I had for myself on flashcards, including long-term and short-term goals, along with the dates I wanted to achieve them by. Every night I would shuffle through them, randomly pick one, and meditate on that goal.
One of the goals I had written down was to study abroad starting in the fall of 2022 and to travel for the summer leading up to the semester. I’m now writing to you from Belgrade, a place where I would’ve laughed in your face if you told me it had more charm than the streets of Italy.
If the Elle of 2020 were to meet the Elle of 2022, she would’ve said something like:
“Wow, glad it worked.”
me, sassy after being stuck inside for weeks on end
But I really do believe in leveraging the power of our mind. After writing down my goals that month, I repeated my process 2-3 times since then, and have seen more and more goals come to fruition.
Do you write down your goals?
For more by me you can visit http://www.poemsandprose.travel.blog
Congratulations! Even if I don’t I can encourage my teenager to do it. Nice idea.😀
Oh, you had me laughing with your sassy comment at the end, Elle!
A couple of times, usually at someone else’s prompting, I’ve done a vision journal where you cut out pictures or phrases from magazines and paste them in. An exercise that I thought was silly at the time but has turned out to be powerful. Thank you for the reminder about writing down and meditating on goals. Beautiful post!
And I’m glad it worked for you too!
This is exactly the sort of inspiration I needed😃
Great article as always, Elle!
I am glad you’re having lots of fun!
Thank you for allowing us to love vicariously through you.
That’s very powerful Elle, I am happy that you could achieve some goals and I am sure you will achieve more!
What a thought provoking post and wonderful habit to begin. Thank you for sharing your success with this exercise with us. So happy to hear about the positive results you’re had. Time for me to get some flash cards!!
That’s awesome, Elle. I just started a graduate program last month. I love philosophy and economics. I think that would be a fun program to attend. Keep living life to the fullest.
Congratulations 🎉 yes, I find that when I write down my goals, I’m more likely to accomplish them.