In 2014 my sister discovered this daily planner called Passion Planner. My three sisters and I love to write our notes, ideas, and appointments down onto paper. It helps us to connect with the task at hand and forms a memory from our fingertips to our brain. From then on, my sister has bought each of us a Passion Planner for Christmas.
The Passion Planner was created by a recent graduate that felt directionless. She came to the realization that probably many people have felt some level of directionless floating, unsure of how to achieve their goals and what steps to take. As a result, the Passion Planner was conceived with the main goal being to help others create a Roadmap to achieve their goals and live out their passions.
The Passion Planner helped me to map what I wanted in this life. I was working with a Design Build firm as a project manager and strictly focused on residential design. While I was excited about all that I was learning in construction, time management, budgets and material purchasing, I felt unfulfilled and depleted. So, I decided to take charge and make a change. I had enough money saved to not work for a few months, so I quit! Quitting a job that is completely unfulfilling is one of the most magical experiences one can have. I felt completely liberated and in charge. I am a firm believer that we create our own reality, so I had to step out of the 12-hour work days fully to put any focus on what it was that I wanted in this life. At the same time, my sister had just given me my first Passion Planner.
I began to create my roadmap. I built a vision board, mind mapped the next few months, the next year, and my lifetime, to discover what it truly was that I wanted in this life. The thing that is probably so common with most people, is that I already knew what I wanted. I have known for the past decade, but I was unsure about how to get there, unsure if the risks I was taking was “the smart” thing to do, or if I was just making life harder on myself.
With the Passion Planner in hand, I was able to vision my lifetime goals, and then break them down into goals I would like to reach in the next 3 years, 1 year and 3 months. As a result, I began to approach people in my professional network with whom I would like to work with, in order to earn my landscape architecture license. I only chose people that were aligned with my professional goals and the kind of work I envisioned doing for a lifetime. Ilisa Goldman was at the top of that list. I had volunteered with her in the past couple of years, and kept in touch. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing for work, but knew that her and I shared similar values in relation to how we would like to focus and practice landscape architecture.
Now, at Rooted in Place! We are a two-woman force focusing on community engagement, ecological schoolyards and advocacy. It is the perfect mix of activism, design and management that drives me to use my skills for the better. We now use the Passion Planner together. We have mapped out our 2016 from January thru December and recently re-mapped out our goals at the six-month mark in July. We are thickly in the midst of business development, marketing and budgeting, which are the backbone to making the firm of our dreams a reality. We come together weekly to look over our goals for the week, both in production work and in business development, marketing and finances.
Ilisa and I understand the importance of creating the structure and flexibility within our practice to be able to feel fulfilled both in and outside of work. We both have family life, hobbies, personal goals and support each other in fulfilling those personal goals. When I have a bad week, Ilisa helps to lift me up and the same goes for her. We are not afraid of hard work, trying new things, working late nights and weekends or taking risks, but we understand that we need to create a balance and set boundaries early on within this pursuit of social entrepreneurship and our personal lives.
We preach the Passion Planner to anyone that crosses our paths. Recently, the creator, Angelia Trinidad has been hosting giveaways at Liberty Station.
You can find the Passion Planner at http://www.passionplanner.com/.
Trust us, if you commit to its structure, you will be hooked and see results.
Feature photo is from www.passionplanner.com
