If you have known me for any length on time you know that I LOVE the company Cultivate What Matters! Everything from their lovely founder Lara to the stickers for the #powersheets and Write the Word Journals! If you are new to #powersheets, let me introduce you to the greatest goal setting book in the world.

! Everything from their lovely founder Lara to the stickers for the #powersheets and Write the Word Journals! If you are new to #powersheets, let me introduce you to the greatest goal setting book in the world.

These are power sheets:

They are your planners best friend and your ultimate goal keeper.

These help you uncover what matters most to you and help you get to live life you will be proud of when you are 80!

Now goal setting with a chronic illness can be extremely tricky waters to navigate. As a former perfectionist and high achiever, I understand the struggles of living the chronic illness life and wanting to still work like someone who is able-bodied.

These allow me live an intentional life WHILE living the chronic illness life.

I am going to walk you step by step through how I go through my power sheets WITHOUT overdoing it and overachieving. Now this year was an exciting year for me because I have finally mastered goal setting with a chronic illness (something that I have not done so well with in the past.)

Let’s dive into the dirt, shall we!

• 

• 

On the front page, I wrote my verse of the year and Maura and I exchanged words of encouragement to each other on the lower half of the page. The second page is my declaration page! Remember there is nothing magical about January 1st! You can start cultivating what matters in your life at any time!

Next is your idea page- and embrace the mess! For me I wrote my biggest goal in the middle, “Intentionally seeking joy while embracing the chronic illness life” and then I placed all my other goals around that.

My side goals are:

• Tending to my plants
• embrace each day
• Be present & thrive
• lead a bible study & become a leader in the CI community
• grow close friendships
• go on more double dates
• Be content with what I have but not become complacent
• love Jared well
• Be mindful & slow down
• cultivate hope in Jesus
• Remember that He hears our prayers
• pray fervently with intention
• and get a service dog?

• 

• 

On the get to know me page it’s easy as you just fill in the blanks! One of my favorite quotes from the Cultivate book is, “Peonies grow through the dirt, and so do you.” My favorite part of the getting to know me page is writing in the songs you love at the moment. My favorites and more can be found here if you want to listen!

Breaking your Identity Box is one of the most honest thought provoking pages. For 2019, I chose to attack my box with the lies I tell my self and then the break down each of those lies with the truth. For example: lie: I am not strong enough to withstand the storms my body creates. Truth: I am not strong enough but HE is- “Her collagen may be weak, but her God is strong.”

I truly enjoy the Who I Really Am page and this year I kept it simple. I wrote out all of the “identities” I carry such as “Wife, New Englander, Dancer, writer, follow of Jesus…” and in pink wrote in all of the adjectives that I associate myself with such as, “strong, stubborn, ambitious, mindful….”

This year my why was simple. I had 5 reasons: 1. because I matter. 2. because I am more than my illness 3. because God has called me to do BIG things. 4. because I can. and 5. because I have a purpose.

The Cultivated Life Evaluation pages are meant to be raw and brutally honest. At the bottom of each block I write a note of encouragement to myself. Below is the block that I changed.

I changed recreation to self care because recreation isn’t really an area that I can participate in. Self care is an area I am currently working to cultivate so this was an important area to evaluation. Don’t be afraid to make your powersheets your own!

The three areas that I am choosing to cultivate this year are: Spiritual + Personal Growth, Spouse, and Friends. Now Health always has to be a priority for me WHICH IS OKAY so I always have it circled. It was neat going back to my 2018 powersheets and seeing how much I have grown! The biggest mentality that I let go of this year was believing that I cannot move mountains from a hospital bed (aka I can still do BIG things despite my circumstances.) The other big mentality that I am working to let go of is the idea that because my health is unstable that my whole life is.

• 

• 

Meeting your fears can be difficult and messy. One of my biggest fears and something I have written about on a couple of pages is fearing not having the “right words.” When I broke through my identity box I came to the truth that I don’t have to have the right words as long as they are His words. This truth has flipped my world upside and now when I spend time I prayer, I intentionally ask for His guidance and inspirations over my speech and my writing.

Through this page I found that: If I were to step into these fears and take action, my life would be filled with peace and hope with clear focus on God’s goals for me. I would feel calmer and less “jumbled” and I would be able to embrace God’s strength.

• 

• 

The good things and challenges pages are my second favorite section in my powersheets. One of the tips from prep week was to fill the good things page with all the good things God has done this season- big and small. Two of my favorite Good Things was that I was able to walk down the aisle! My biggest challenge was losing venous access this year. Make sure you have fun while you goal set! On each page I had a more comical good thing and challenge. For good I wrote, “I saved more plants than I killed,” and for challenge I wrote, “fighting with Jared over the room temp”- which is a real problem lol.

• 

• 

I love the lessons I learned page because I find it so inspiring. Good and bad I learned so much this past year and having a place to “brain-dump” it all is nice. Some of the biggest lessons I learned were:

• You don’t need a full schedule to live a full life
• Keep the car and house stocked with apple juice (hypoglycemia probs!)
• It’s okay to have boundaries
• It is nice to have friends with chronic illnesses
• I need to over-pray instead of over-think
• It’s okay to grieve a life that could not be

These were just a few of the things I learned this year. I have many things in the wait but prioritizing them felt good. Then I made sure to acknowledge all of the people I am grateful for and filled the page with everyone God has blessed me with- including you!

Saying yes is hard, and saying no can be even harder. My yes’s and no’s have a lot to do with the chronic illnesses I fight, because these illnesses take up a lot of mind and heart space. This page lays out the foundation for my year ahead.

This is my FAVORITE page!!! I put my verse of the year (in the old NIV translation) here before I even started my prep work because this verse inspires me. All of these things matter to me whether they be big, life-saving, or itty bitty. Include all of the little things because little things matter!

The first word that came to my head when I thought about where I wanted to be when I am 80 was happy- so I made that my focal point. Remember none of your pages have to be super detailed- simple is perfectly alright.

What is so neat about this page is that last year I put intentional in the middle of the page as well! I didn’t notice this until I went back to compare them! It is okay to have somethings be the same every year because you are the same you every time you get a new set of powersheets.

I knew in advance that I wanted this to be my word of the year and when I looked up the definition of bloom which was, A flower, especially one cultivated for it’s beauty, it made it even sweeter!

This is just a recap page to help you remember why you are doing this in the first place!

The final part of prep work is your declaration. This is a cumulation of everything you have done thus far. Today is the day I begin!!!

Now onto Goal Planning

This is where I used to get really over ambitious and neglect that I have some physical limitations- NOT ANYMORE! This year I was determined to break bad habits and write attainable, spoonie-friendly goals.

• 

• 

For threads I try to take my main areas I am working to cultivate and use those as starting points. I also use this as my opportunity to color code my goals. I even realized that Living the Chronic Illness Life was its own thread so I added that! That is the beauty of powersheets- you uncover what matters.

• 

• 

The next step is to simplify all those goals and group things together. This I like to keep color coded as well. Now I only had 7 written down initially and a few days later I decided I wanted to add the contentment challenge I just went back and added it. You do not have to do everything at once. If you only have 1-2 goals that is OKAY you do not need to utilize all of your space. Many of my goals are things I need to daily like rest, take. my meds, and read my bible. Don’t be afraid of the power of small, “insignificant” daily goals- this is where you thrive. That has been my BIGGEST secret to success.  

Now I am going to show you how I take each of these goals and break them down.

Goal 1: cultivate our marriage

• 

• 

Goal 2: cultivate friendships

• 

• 

Goal 3: appreciate + take care of my broken body

• 

• 

Goal 4: daily time with God

• 

• 

Goal 5: focus on self-care

• 

• 

Goal 6: build up LTCIL brand

• 

• 

Goal 7: lead cultivate bible study

• 

• 

Goal 8: write LTCIL book

• 

• 

then there was an unexpected goal that kinda happened about a week after I thought I had finished setting all my goals

Goal 9: save more money

• 

• 

Then I post the main page where I use my color coded stickers to match everything to it’s correct color!

• 

• 

Now not all of my goals are HUGE little things like joint corrections and self care. I hope this gives you some ideas and some encouragement as you go through your powersheets whether you are a first time user or a seasoned user.

Let me know in the comments below how you use your #powersheets and what your best tip is! Also comment some of your goals below- I would love to know what you are all about!