In a recent post, I discussed the things I’ve realised I want from my life. I’ll recap:

1. I want my life to have meaning. I want the areas of my life to cohere in to a pattern with an overarching aim, vision or mission.
2. I’m in pursuit of happiness. Currently, a big chunk of this is my being in pursuit of healthiness (mentally, physically & spirituality).
3. Happiness is located in happiness for myself & happiness for others. Cue entrepreneurship (for me) and social enterprise (for others), united.

Now I just need to decide what I’m doing now to make that future happen.

Do you know what you want from your life? Or, Reflections on mine, Kathleen, 7 Dec 06

Cue this series in three parts. In Power of three: Goal-setting I explore three areas (health, studying & business) and go through some simple instructions for myself. By doing so, I make it easier to achieve my goals (meaning, happiness for myself & happiness for others) because I’ve broken them down in to easy-to-follow steps, which include things I like doing.

I hope these entries help you to achieve similar success with your goals too. Do write in (email or leave comments) and let me know how you get on.

Health

1. Physical
   • Water: The easiest, cheapest way to be healthy.
   • Dancing: I love dancing. In On Religion, the secret to happiness is dance. It’s an excellent way to combat "blogfat - an aversion to doing anything physical that takes us away from crafting a new post." Pam.
   • Healthy-eating: Yo Sushi (review coming soon) and vegetarian cuisine, like Food For Thought seem like excellent ways to go, because yummy and healthy is the only way I ever maintain a healthy diet for any reasonable length of time. Experimenting in the kitchen is fun too.
2. Emotional
   • Love: It can be such a devastating heartache and yet still there are numerous poems in awe of love. Kant defined human beings as distinctly rational beings; why not as loving beings?
   • Kindness: I find it amazing when that truism ‘a stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet’ really does ring true. The kindness of strangers is so unexpected. I’m in the company of a couple of Texans (they’re from Austin, which is ‘the hole in the Bible-belt’, can I call them Austinians?!) who are so welcoming and lovely that I can’t get over it. I’d love to make people feel that way around me.
   • Niceness: Being nice is one of those virtues that really is its own reward. It’s closely linked to being charitable. It seems to me that being nice is about the warmness you feel in your heart when you’re nice, not about boasting about it. (Reminds me of something in the Bible, New Testament, about how charity should be given in secret). With the exception of when public charity-giving raises awareness and encourages others to do it too.
3. Mental: This is going to be the toughest nut to crack, definitely. Notice how the steps get increasingly vague as they progress from physical to emotional to mental, mainly because my mental anguishes at the moment revolve around:
   • Philosophy conflicts: What I believe versus what I can explain rationally. Studying is both helping and hindering my progress here. (In my next entry on Studying, I’ll discuss my philosophy conflicts in more depth).
   • Being good: Sometimes it’s so hard. Sometimes it feels like being good only results in more pain and unhappiness for everyone involved. Sometimes being bad feels good.
   • Spirituality: Trying to explain how I feel about it seems like a mammoth, impossible task at the moment. It feels completely indefinable and uncategorisable.

Looking forward

Come back on Friday for the next installment of Power of three: Goal-setting: Studying (2 of 3). I’ll be developing some of my thoughts on the ‘Mental’ side of things too.