Now that we have our personalized Modern Ninja Code of Conduct (or Core Values) set up we can now focus on what our mission is. Every Ninja has a mission and in our case the practices needed on a daily (or consistent) basis is our mission.
Goals can give a person a sense of purpose in life. Feeling lost? Stressed? A general sense of something missing? Unhappy? It could very well mean that you’re lacking direction and purpose in your life. Goals and a mission to reach those goals might be just the thing you need to bring meaning to your life.
How big or small the goal is entirely up to you, what’s important is that the goal is something that interests and excites you. Having feeling behind the goals you choose will play a role in the likelihood of your follow through. So plan a mission that is your own. You might want to set up some goals that will lead to starting your own online business, start a meditation practice and get out of debt. Or maybe you want to rekindle a passion you had for being creative and so you set a goal of crocheting your first sweater. There is no right or wrong, it’s about figuring out what you would truly like to do.
I don’t know what the meaning of life is but I think self-actualization in a field(s) that makes a person happy is a big part of it because we are our best selves when we are operating at our highest potential and when you are your best self is when you are in the best position to do good and bring happiness to others.
Self-actualization is the act of developing a skill or talent to the best of your ability. Being the best you can be at something you love and always striving to improve brings meaning to your life, especially if you share or teach that skill to others. You may not even know right now what it is you want to be the best at, but you can start by trying different things that interest you until you find something that you want. Explore! You can always switch it up if you need to because goals are not a static never changing thing, you may need to update, add or remove a goals as you change and that’s fine, because growth is all about change.
So what do you want to learn or improve upon in your life? If you’ve just been living a life on automatic for a long time you may not even know where to start when it comes to setting goals and living life with more intention and purpose. So this may be a good time to really reflect on what you truly want out of life. You may want to work on something you’re already good at or you may want to develop a completely new skill that you’ve never tried before but that interests you. Anything is on the table at this point as long as you are realistic about the time and potential financial sacrifice of whatever it is you end up wanting to do.
If you haven’t set any goals for yourself in awhile my advice to you is to start small. Think of two or three areas of your life that you would like to improve upon. There is no point in setting 20 goals right off the bat if you are new at this process because the chances of you sticking to such a big plan are slim to none. You may start out strong but most people will quit due to feeling overwhelmed or discouraged due to being unable to see the end in sight.
So choose 2 or 3 areas of your life with one or two goals you want to achieve in each area. There are many different life “categories” but here are a few of the main ones:
- Health (physical, mental and emotional self-care)
- Relationships (family/friends/spouse)
- Personal Growth (learning or improving on a skill, reading and acquiring knowledge)
- Religion/Spirituality (meditation, gratitude, religious practices)
- Professional Growth (Career, business, entrepreneurship)
- Finances (savings, investments, budgeting)
- Contribution to Society (volunteer work, service to others)
In my case the 3 areas and goals I have chosen to work on are:
Personal Growth: Completing my Integrative Nutritionist Course, Continuing to read all I can on the topic of self-mastery
Health: Continuing to grow my movement, strength, mobility and flexibility training
Spirituality: Developing a meditation and visualization practice, practicing daily gratitude
When Setting Up Your Goals Make sure they pass the following test:
- Is it something that you truly want to accomplish? (Rather than someone else’s expectations for you?)
- Are your goals in line with your core values?
- Do your goals excite you when you think about them?
If you’ve answered yes to the above questions then we can move on.
We’ve decided on the areas of our life that we want to work on with a big picture goal for each area, but as I said earlier, working with a big picture goal can easily get overwhelming and discouraging if you don’t break it down into manageable chunks or ‘mini goals’.
For example, I have a big picture goal under the area of Personal Development to complete my Integrative Nutritionist course. Everyday I can easily tell myself I’ll work on it tomorrow, because the goal of completing the course is for some unknown time in the future. There is nothing specific calling me to action. Next thing you know 3 months passes and you haven’t even started due to putting it off.
So I’m going to reverse engineer the Big Picture Goal until I break it down into something I can do daily.
Big Picture Goal: Complete Integrative Nutritionist Course (Approx 1.5 years)
Mini Goal (monthly): Complete four Quizzes a month
Mini Goal (weekly): Read two chapters and complete one quiz a week
Practices: 1hr of studying Monday to Friday and 30 minutes on Saturday
I now have a goal broken down into mini goals with a specific practice to follow in order to hit my target mini goals. There is no more waiting to feel “motivated” to work on my goal of completing my Integrative Nutritionist course. Now all I have to do is execute the mission of studying an hour a day to make progress.
Create a big picture goal, and mini goals and 2-3 practices you can do during the week to achieve your goal for each area of your life that you want to improve on. Here are mine:
Personal Growth:
Big Picture Goal: Complete Integrative Nutritionist Course / Become the most knowledgeable person in Montreal on the subject of self-mastery and self-development
90 Day Mini Goals: Complete 12 quizzes in my Integrative Nutritionist Course / Read 3 books on the topic of self mastery or self develoment
Practices: Study at least 1hr a day on Nutritionist course Monday to Friday and 30 Minutes on Saturday/Read for at least 15 minutes a day on the topic of self-development
Health:
Big Picture Goal: To get stronger, more flexible, more mobile, more fluid, more graceful and and more complex with my movement and movement sequences. (never ending progress to be made no time limit)
90 Day Mini Goals: Consistently hold a 10 second handstand on 2 out of every 5 attempts/Stay in ground locomotion for at least 3 minutes/Stay in deep squat for at least 5 minutes/Refine muscle up
Practices: Complete a strength training routine at least 3x week /Complete movement, mobility and flexibility training at least 15 minutes a day/Work on my handstand everyday for at least 5 minutes a day
Spirituality:
Big Picture Goal: Develop a meditation and visualization practice, practice daily gratitude (never ending progress to be made, no end date)
90 Day Mini Goals: Meditate for 40 minutes day by the end of the 90 Days/Visualize for 10 minutes a day/ Start and end each day with things that I am grateful for
Practices: Meditate daily starting at 10 minutes and gradually adding 5 minutes every two weeks/Daily visualization sessions starting at 2 minutes increasing incrementally/Practice gratitude daily
If you need help setting up your goals or mini goals or practices then feel free to reach out to me! Otherwise have fun creating your mission.
