Written by our Founder and CEO, our Celebrations Pulse Sunday Letters aim to engage with our community. From sharing stories to welcoming your ideas, we want to help you to express, connect, and celebrate the important people in your life.
Last week we talked about our ability to use the upcoming slower summer months productively, rather than letting them pass us by. We encouraged you to identify some summer goals and to start a list of tasks you want to complete in order to reach your goal.We were thrilled with the outpouring of submissions about how you are going to spend your summer months and the lofty goals you had set. Carol Geary, we wish you luck on your summer garden. We also look forward to taking on new gardening projects. Stephen Chatwin, we admire that you want to get your yard fixed up so that your son has a safe place to play. Dan Fortuna, we are humbled that our letter made you step back to realize your goal was to be the best you can be. This is a lofty one and we all strive to be the best version of ourselves for our families, friends and communities.
"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible."
– Tony Robbins
Our friends also had some summer goals and plans. Soon after sending this letter we heard from a long-time friend of ours and Smile Farms founding Board Member, Alec McAuley. Alec and his wife Jane are some of the finest people we know. We have encouraged Alec to write a book for years, and he shared that many of his family and friends have also encouraged him to do that. But he said writing a book is a huge undertaking. He said, “how did you write a few books given how busy you are?”. And I let him in on a secret. I never wrote a “book”. I told stories. I dictated them. I wrote them, recounted a conversation to a group, wrote ideas on scraps of paper while traveling on planes. I gathered these nuggets and then worked with an editor to bridge these stories into the message I wanted to deliver.
I cannot wait to hear Alec’s story and read his book. He has a gift of knowledge, insight and a unique humanness.
I suspect a lot of us can relate to this. Let’s dare not mention our term paper anxieties. Committing to a new goal or project is often much easier said than done. How do you get from point A to point B? The journey can seem daunting. But the path to success does not have to be a straight line – there are so many different ways you can make positive progress.
For you, it may not be a book. Maybe you want to stark cooking, begin a fitness journey, learn a new language, or improve your personal relationships. The same sentiment holds true: don’t get caught up on the end goal, and instead focus on realistic tasks you can achieve each day. Figure out what works for you and your schedule and manage accordingly. Once you start taking the first steps you will feel invigorated and your goal won’t seem so far out of reach.
This topic is so important to us because we believe personal goal development is a vital part of self-care. Working towards, and potentially reaching, a goal makes you feel proud of, yourself. It helps you develop a positive self-image, which could ultimately help improve your mental and physical health.
This is part of the reason why we take such pride in our work with Wisdo though Connection Communities. Our eight curated digital communities offer a space for our customers to connect around shared life experiences, and to identify and work towards their goals together. Boaz Gaon, the Founder of Wisdo, shared that goal setting is something that is encouraged in every Wisdo community. Since launching the “Goals” feature Wisdo has seen almost 7,000 goals chosen per month with the average of more than 2 per person. The “Loneliness” group has a total of 5,300 goals alone. This feature facilities better connections as well – conversations around shared goals tend to be longer and deeper, since there's a shared sense of solidarity not just about the past, but also about a hopeful shared future.
Online forums, such as Connection Communities can be a great way to talk through your plans and bounce strategies for success off each other. It also helps to have a group of people to talk to when you face a roadblock on your journey. In other words, setting goals if often not just about the journey towards meeting them – it’s also an opportunity to connect to others who are on the same journey or else have already taken it, and so can share encouraging and empowering words. Because they’ve “been there.”
Remember to start small, figure out what works for you, lean on others who’ve already journeyed successfully towards goals identified and achieved, so the journey will become enjoyable and much less taxing.
All the best,
Jim & Chris
P.S. I recently spoke with radio and TV personality, John Tesh on Facebook about the launch of 1-800-Flowers.com Connection Communities, gour new peer-to-peer support portal that guides people through life events by connecting them with others who have walked the same path. We are offering our customers Connection Communities free for 6 months!
To learn more, check out the Facebook live conversation we had recently.
Please visit us here to join the hundreds of thousands already involved in the conversation: https://www.1800flowers.com/connection-communities
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AUTHOR
Jim McCann is the founder, CEO, and chairman of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. as well as a business leader, author, and philanthropist with a passion for helping people deliver smiles. Devoted to helping others, he also founded Smile Farms, a 501(c)3 organization that provides meaningful jobs in agricultural settings to young adults and adults with developmental disabilities.