My 2019 Designed: How I Put It All Together

Welcome to 2019! I love a new year. It feels like a beautifully wrapped present with your name on it, just waiting for you to open it. What might be inside??

If you’ve been following the last few blog posts, you’ve learned the steps to designing your 2019, to setting goals and creating a plan to achieve them. The process we have used is a little untraditional and whimsical, and I hope that you’ve had fun with it.

The lighthearted approach doesn’t dilute the power of the system, though. It’s just the spoonful of sugar that helps make the deep thinking a little more approachable.

I thought it might help you to see how I personally used that same system to set my Harp Mastery goals for 2019. I have several areas in which I set goals each year, and Harp Mastery is one of them. I also set personal goals, harp playing goals, spiritual goals and some others as well. I don’t always accomplish all of them, but I always end up having made progress in the areas that are important to me.

So here is my 2019 design for Harp Mastery.

My Movie Trailer

I adjusted the trailer script a little, since it wasn’t about my playing the harp.

In a world where harpists long for support, community and growth, one harpist tries to discover how to help them find their unique paths to harp happiness.

Anne started the Harp Mastery blog in 2012 as a way to share what she had learned from her teachers and her own experience. The blog quickly gained an audience, and she saw that the need was greater than she had thought. It became her dream to help each harpist find “harp happiness,” to have the satisfaction of being able to play the harp the way they wanted. In 2014, My Harp Mastery was born, and Anne began to realize her dream, helping harpists all over the world.

Unfortunately, Anne’s path was not without obstacles. Her dream was threatened by the Resistance, which first revealed itself in technological challenges and then later caused her to spend more time doing computer tasks than connecting with the harpists she wanted to serve. The more ways she devised to teach and encourage harpists, the more time she spent in administrative work.

Will Anne give up? Will she defeat the Resistance? Will Harp Mastery collapse under its own weight?

My Sorting Hat

Like all movie trailers, mine makes the situation sound much more desperate than it is. The truth of the matter is that I needed to sort out all the component parts of Harp Mastery and see what was really going on.

So I did my Sorting Hat exercise, writing down all the steps and tasks that are part of Harp Mastery now and that will be part of what I want Harp Mastery to be in the future.

Then I sorted them all, labelling them as “Time and Energy,” “Growth” or “Habit.” I can tell you I ended up with quite a list!

My Princess and the Pea

If you’ve done this part of the system, you know that this is the hardest step. It forces you to look your obstacles in the face, which is when you realize that the face you’re looking at is your own!

It didn’t take me long to see that my “pea” involved leadership and stepping into the habits of leadership in a new way. I have outlined several steps to help me work on this, and I’m excited about the opportunities for growth – personal and professional – that I will find along the way.

Having done this work, I am now able to build my calendar around these new habits. I am planning the monthly themes for the My Harp Mastery members, getting ready to invite new members to the Gold Circle, finding dates for the Harp Mastery Retreat and planning for the Harp in the Mountains Summer Camp. And I am able to approach each of these with renewed energy, focus and anticipation because I have gained clarity about the path to follow and the obstacles I will need to move out of my way.

I don’t expect miracles from 2019. I just want to enjoy the blessing of another year to grow with, learn from, serve and share with my fellow harpists and dear friends.

Happy New Year to all!

As I mentioned above in the post, my “pea” involves my leadership habits. In one word, what is your “pea,” the obstacle you need to move out of your way? Tell me in the comments below, if you dare 😊