Is your calendar planning just holidays and appointments?
Calendar planning is just a long term to-do list that's probably going to change anyway, why bother. Sure there's a few things that have to be on there, but planning a whole year is crazy! Nobody can predict what's going to happen, what a waste of time. Sound familiar? If so, beware! This is the moment indifference steps out of the shadows and into your life. A looming presence that stretches out into the entire span of your year: waiting and watching to moderate your excitement for living. If you've ever felt numb during joyous times for no reason you could discern, then you've experienced the influence of indifference. But don't worry, it's not hopeless. When what's on your calendar is more than a glorified to-do list of externally enforced responsibilities indifference is forced to slink back to the shadows. How can you use calendar planning to push indifference back?
A Steady Drip Eventually Floods
Every year starts of the same. A boost of excitement and idealism for the future. A few months in we stand strong, there might have been a few set backs but overall we are still excited. Halfway through the year all the excitement we felt at the start of the year has vanished. It's easy for us to point towards different events in life that have assaulted our optimism for what we could accomplish. Most are things far outside of our sphere of control. We resort to doing what we did the year before and the year before that. Looking forward to the holidays, vacations, and weekends. All the general escapes from our daily lives. As we near the end a growing despair turns to hope once more, and the cycle continues. But here's the question.
What traps us in this perception prison of ultimate mediocrity?
The answer is the slow and steady drip of indifference. When the year starts we have a singular event that drives decisive action, we are encouraged by society to become engaged in our lives like at no other time in the year. In the months leading up to the 1st, January becomes filled with new and exciting initiatives for your life. Perhaps these initiatives even go so far as to expand into February and March. That's where things usually end. By this time your days have taken on a sameness, especially if you've been consistent. As far as you can see into the next nine months it's more of the same. The drip begins.
As the year progresses, so the drip steadily falls and surrounds you like a flood until you become hindered by it. Even if great things start happening around you. There is a disconnect from the events, life seems to move by you faster than you keep up until the drip is so high you are up to your neck, and it's all you can do to just float. Indifference has now overwhelmed every facet of your life.
As the new year returns the goodwill overwhelms indifference, the drip disappears, along with it the flood is drained, and once again you dare to hope.
Intentional Calendar Planning for a Year of Your Life
To stop the drip and cut off indifference at the pass you need to imbue your calendar throughout the year with the same kind of push that you receive at the start of it. More than that, these pushes need to be things that you are excited by, things that you can look forward to. Most importantly, they need to be related to supporting your overall goal and intent for the year. The big one! The one thing that when you accomplish it, your life will change drastically.
The Basic Calendar:
- Shared Social Holidays
- Birthday Celebrations
- Meetings and Appointments
- Two "Big One" Related Events
- One Monthly "Big One" Related Meetups
- One Weekly Check In with a "Big One" Related Group or Individual
With these new types of events filling up your calendar it won't be just tasks to get done, it will be experiences to look forward to! A feeling that alone could change your whole year!
Connected Through Experiences
When we surround ourselves in activity with people of like mind and purpose it amplifies everything we're striving for. Our capacity expands because when we are together the sum total of all our experience can be utilized by everyone.
So, we have to ask. When was your last big event, meetup, or group/individual check in? What was it about? How has it expanded you?
Inspire others to be intentional with their calendar planning! Who knows, maybe even make some connections here!
