I came up with the term: “ Holistic Maintenace” after years of following and taking the action steps in my Evolutionary Goals framework daily. Think of a car’s performance concerning the car’s maintenance requirements. The engine is the heart of the car. All the other parts have to work together for the car to perform effectively. Would you say that your heart is one of the most important organs in the body? How much more vital it is to maintain our mind and body so that we can perform effectively in the world? We may not have to take the car to the mechanic for maintenance daily but we require daily maintenance because we are much more important than a car. This is why I call it “ holy maintenance”. There’s no need to be afraid of the word: Holy. It is not meant to be religious. However,, it is meant to be sacred and I am evoking the supreme attention and intention to our Beingness that this daily Holistic maintenance guides us towards. The doing must come from the Being. You are a spirit having a human experience. The holy maintenance tasks that are part of the evolutionary goals invite you to focus on your day from the first thing you feel, think, and then do in the morning to the last thing you feel, think, and do at night. There are seven goals on the evolutionary template. They are divided into categories such as: Spiritual/ethical, health/physical, personal, financial, career, educational, social/cultural. I am sharing my category of goals based on my dreams and goals. You are encouraged to identify and define your category of dreams and goals. You can do that by focusing on just one goal or dream. It’s helpful also to define the difference between a goal and a dream from your perspective. My definition is that the dream encompasses what I feel is my life purpose and the goals are the accomplishments along the way to fulfill my life purpose. The goals are broken down even further into daily tasks and activities that are guided by the mind and heart. Now the tasks are not meant to be rigid and inflexible. They are supposed to be encouraging by providing short-term wins. As human beings, we thrive on appreciation of the self and others. Here is an example: I have one educational goal of Learning Spanish, which fits within an aspect of my life purpose to communicate and understand others of a different culture for better connection and appreciation. To that end, I study Spanish every day for 15-20 minutes, and as of this writing, I have a 924-day streak on Duolingo. This goal can also fit in the social/cultural categories as well but I choose to put it in the educational category. To recap there are three ways to create a blueprint to succinctly define your dreams and goals.
Identify the difference between a goal and a dream from your perspective.
Identify and Focus on just one dream or goal of your heart
1.Break that goal or dream into different categories
2. Think about the tasks that are helpful to reach that goal
3. List the tasks specifically. Use the three or even five W’s- What, When, Who and include the time ( how long or how much time you will perform this task on a daily/ weekly basis, etc.
Notice I didn’t include anything about professional development goals or teaching-related goals. This was on purpose. I encouraged you to focus on a non-teaching related goal for this exercise.
Stay tuned! We will be delving deeply into each of the goal categories that I mentioned in the post in the next few weeks.
I hope that you enjoyed reading this blog post, written especially for you. It was taken straight from my mind and heart as I felt vulnerable to share glimpses of my world with you. The article was polished and meticulously reviewed to make sure it was in the best possible light before it was published so that it may serve you well.
If you’re seeking additional resources or personalized support, feel free to reach out at www.insightfuleducation.org. Together, we can cultivate classrooms where you and your students feel empowered to learn and thrive, which is aligned with the NICE Teacher framework (Nurturing, Integrated, Courageous, and Encouraging).