Inspiring!

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Planning for a better 2020 — in which I take a step back on Planners

I said planners and gadgets don’t work. Not for me.

Well, I found one that I had to try, and I’m loving it.

Lara Casey’s PowerSheets www.cultivatewhatmatters.com — I kept seeing all sorts of YouTube videos touting them, and with all the detail provided, the idea entered my mind that this might just possibly be a truly useful tool. So I took a very deep breath and ordered the Powersheets Starter Bundle ($100, roughly) . . . and prayed I wasn’t throwing that $100 down the drain.

My box arrived yesterday, Wednesday, after I ordered late Saturday. Not bad at all.

Let me say this up front: This is NOT a “Planner” in the traditional sense of the word. The Powersheets Goal Planner is a guided evaluation of your present and past life, and a chance to consciously plan where you want to go from here — what you want to be able to look back on when you’re an 80 (or 90, or 100) year old Geezerette. There are monthly sections for short-term goals and evaluation, but this is a tool to work in conjunction with your regular calendar/planner.

And this not the usual trite and frivolous planner. Casey and her development team invite us to go deep, to look at our fears and insecurities, to transform the way we see them, and to consciously create lives for ourselves — based on what we value, not on what some external authority tells us is supposed to be important. Somewhere I saw that Casey comes at this from a faith-based perspective, but there’s nothing cloying about PowerSheets; I am comfortable with them as a Catholic, and I think a person without any faith value would be just as delighted at using them as I am. WE get to determine what we value and want to accomplish.

There are a multitude of YouTube videos introducing the Powersheets — my favorites are Elyssa Nalani and Ashlyn Writes — but you can just put Powersheets in the search bar and have at it.

I’ve made a start with the preliminary evaluations, but I’ll be revisiting these early pages often in the next two and a half weeks, leading up to Christmas, developing my thoughts, going deeper inside myself to see not only what’s important (that’s kind of obvious?) but past the generalities into a more specific vision.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED PRODUCT.

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A Prayer of St Benedict

Grant to me, O Father,
most holy and most merciful,
wisdom to understand Thy intentions with
regard to me, a heart to share Thy feelings,
courage to seek Thee alone, and a way
of life that contributes to Thy glory.

Give me, O my God,
eyes that see only Thee,
a tongue that may speak only of Thee,
and a life devoted entirely to Thy will.

Finally, O my Savior, grant me the joy
of seeing Thee one day, face-to-face,
with all Thy saints in glory.

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From Elisabeth LeSeur –

September 25, 1899 — No one knows what passes in the profound depths of our soul.  To feel God near, to meditate, to pray, to gather all our deepest thoughts so as to reflect on them more deeply: that is to live the inner life, and this inner life is the supreme joy of life.  But so many moving thoughts and ardent desires and generous resolutions should be translated into deeds, for we are in the midst of human life and a great task lies before us.

It is time for painful effort: one must tear oneself asunder, forsake the realm of thought for that of reality, face action, know that one will either not be understood or be understood wrongly; and that one will perhaps suffer at the hands of humanity for having willed the good of humanity.  We must already have drawn from God an incomparable strength and armed our hearts with patience and love, in order to undertake day by day and hour by hour the work that should belong to every Christian:  the moral and material salvation of his brothers.

(Leseur, Elisabeth. My Spirit Rejoices. Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 1996.)