Monday, 5/22/23: Talking about taking the long view and high school graduation fun

Happy Monday!

It’s a new week, which means it’s time for your next Monday motivation newsletter.

Read on below for some steps to a happier Monday, a short story and a roundup of positive thoughts to get your week started.

Three Steps to a Happier Monday

Each newsletter starts with three prompts to inspire gratitude and simple intention setting. Take a moment and jot down answers to these three questions. To give an example, I share my answers below.  

Step 1: What are three things I appreciated from the weekend? 

Step 2: What is one thing I can be excited about today?

Step 3: What is my intention for this week? 

GRATITUDE: I’m thankful for a really fun weekend with family in Columbus, catching up with my mom and the beautiful weather we had for a grad party.  

TODAY: I’m most excited to get back to Chicago and getting settled today.

INTENTION: My intention this week is to do my Five-Minute Journal every day.

Okay, your turn! And if you want to share your three steps, I am all ears. 🙂

Meaningful Musings: Decade Thinking

Looking out the window of the plane I was on this weekend, I was reminded how different things can look when you change your perspective.

It reminded me of something I read in a book recently. In Off Balance, author Matthew Kelly makes the case for why striving for personal and professional satisfaction can be more fulfilling than striving for balance.

It was a quick, insightful read. A lot of it resonated with me, but especially something Matthew calls “decade thinking.” As he writes, “Most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade.” He suggests that we don’t regularly think about our lives three, five or 10 years from now, and as a result, our hopes and dreams always remain at arm’s length.

Offhand, I don’t even know how old I’ll be three, five or 10 years from now. But when I do the math – 32, 34, 39 – I’m struck by how quickly I can think of meaningful things I hope to accomplish and experience in those years. What can I be doing today to get closer to those things?

In this article, Matthew writes again about decade thinking and uses an examples from an architect whose specialty was luxury homes. I LOVED this example.

The architect said, “The majority of people build a home to accommodate a family. What they don’t realize is that how they will use this home they are designing and building will change every five years for 25 years, and then every 10 years for as long as they live in it. Most people design a home for their needs today, not realizing that by the time the two- to four-year process of designing and building a luxury home is finished, their needs will have already changed.”

She explained that she has an exercise to help people envision how their home will change over time:

• She begins by having them lay out the next 25 years in five-year increments: five, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years from now.
• They write down how old they will be at each interval and how old their children will be at each interval.
• Then, they write down which rooms in the home will be the most important during each five-year period.

So good right?! While I’m not building a luxury home, I can see how this exercise can alter the way homes are designed and built. I think a similar exercise could alter our priorities today too.

I wanted to try an example for myself, so I turned to the thing that ALWAYS helps me make sense of concepts: Microsoft Excel.

In a simple spreadsheet, I put the years for the next 10 years vertically down the first column, how old I would be in the next column, how old family members like my mom and dad would be in the next column (could see this being SO helpful with kids), and then finally a column for notes. In notes I jotted down things I’m looking forward to (first half marathon, first trip to Europe) as well as other milestones (work anniversaries, my 30^th birthday, my parents’ 60^th birthdays, etc.).

Year (May of…)	My age	Notes
2023	29
2024	30
2025	31
2026	32
2027	33
2028	34
2029	35
2030	36
2031	37
2032	38

 
While big things like buying a house or celebrating my mom’s retirement or hopefully having kids can feels so ambiguous and far off (“one day I’ll…”), but looking at it plotted out in a simple spreadsheet, it feels more tangible. Like an anchor to reference when thinking about the future.

The spreadsheet spans years, but by putting those long-term hopes and dreams on my horizon, I’m more conscious of (and enthusiastic about!) choices I’m making today, with my money, with my health, with my relationships. It’s these small choices that day by day will add up to the bigger things.

It also makes me more appreciative of the now. I know I won’t always live a short walk away from the Chicago lakefront in my beloved Lincoln Park apartment. My running paths will change. My amount of open, outside-of-work time with change. My grocery shopping routine will change. Thinking of this makes me more appreciative and aware of these small, everyday things.

It’s a shift to take the long view and to consider things from the perspective of looking out the plane’s window. But it’s a viewpoint that can bring a lot of contemplation and clarity. I want to start referencing this simple decade view spreadsheet weekly, to intentionally remind myself of the things I jotted down. We’ll see how it goes.

What do you think? Do you practice anything like decade thinking?    

On My Monday Radar

Sometimes we just aren’t ready to jump into our Monday to-do list right away. In case you want some content to procrastinate with, here is a roundup of a few positive things on my radar:  

• Daily habits of happiness experts. Love articles with suggestions like these.
• 10 questions for the start of summer. Great prompts to question at the start of a new season.
• The book my aunt lent my mom and I’m reading after her. She raved about it! 
• Speaking of my mom… she bought me these pink shorts this weekend (it’s ‘no shop May’ for me, so thanks mom!) and I can’t wait to wear them. Sooo cute.  

Picture of the Week