I’m never afraid to invest in tools that will help me get to where I want to be, so for me, Powersheets were a no-brainer. $60 for an entire year of being coached through setting goals that would move me forward? Yes, please!

But, I understand that $60 is a lot of money, so I’m here today to help you decide if these are right for you. If you decide that you want to take the leap and grab your own, you can grab them right here! The new 2020 sets just launched this week.

In this post, I’m telling you all about my favorite tool for intentional living — Cultivate What Matter’s Powersheets. We’ll talk all about what Powersheets are, how they work, and why they are so key for helping me live a more intentional life.

Why I Started to Use Powersheets

Before I tell you exactly how I use my Powersheets, let me tell you why.

When I first heard about Powersheets, I was just beginning to come out of a really dark time. I had been living in such a dark cloud of anxiety and overwhelm, and was starting to step out of that. I’d just done the first major cleanout of my closet and was in the beginning stages of creating a capsule wardrobe, but I was already seeing the benefits and was trying to learn everything I could about living intentionally.

I’d realized that I was spending all of my time working, working, working, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. I wanted to stop spinning my wheels, and start actually working towards something, but I didn’t know how to actually set goals that were realistic or that would move me closer to where I wanted to be in life.

I had spent my entire life until that point setting goals that looked good on paper, goals that I thought would impress others, but didn’t really make a difference in where I wanted to be in life. Once I realized that I wasn’t living in alignment with my priorities, I decided then and there that I was done living that way!

Maybe you’re like me, and you’re realizing you’ve been doing the exact same thing. Living out of alignment with your purpose and priorities. If so, I want to take a second to encourage you. Realizing this is the first step towards changing it. Congratulations on taking your first step. Let’s keep moving forward with that momentum.

What Powersheets Are

So, what are Powersheets? Powersheets are an intentional goal planner designed to help you live your best year yet, and grow an intentional life. Unlike a typical planner, Powersheets help you to focus on the right things. With a typical planner, you are focused on what your activities and to-do lists are, but with Powersheets, you’re focused on where you want to be.

Now, I’m not knocking Planners. I’m obsessed with my Day Designer, and I’ve always been a planner girl. It’s so important for keeping me on track with my days, for time-blocking, and for juggling life. But I’ve discovered that Powersheets are the perfect companion to my daily planner.

By checking in with my Powersheets each day, I’m able to plan my days, weeks, and months out with those goals in mind. It helps to keep me moving towards them by taking one baby step at a time instead of just forgetting about them completely and then giving up when my goals were pushed aside for so long that they became overwhelming.

How do Powersheets work?

Uncovering What’s Holding You Back

The very first section of the Powersheets planner walks you through uncovering goals that will help you figure out how to get to where and who you want to be. This guided coaching walks you through creating your goals, but you aren’t just throwing out random ideas. I mean, the very first page of 2019’s Powersheets does have you do that, but it’s just a brain dump for a starting space.

The next pages walk you through figuring out who you are, where you are holding yourself back, and you can become if you crush those limiting beliefs. Throughout all of it, Lara has notes of encouragement written in there to help push you on. I won’t lie. This can be some really heavy stuff. It is not easy. But it’s an important and necessary process in helping you get where you want to be.

Looking back on my limiting beliefs from last December when I filled these out, it’s hard but amazing. Last December when I began working through the prep work, here’s what I believed:

“I am not commanding enough to be a leader.”

“I am too emotional and not level-headed enough.”

“I am not smart enough to process complicated information.”

It makes my stomach hurt just reading that.

But do you know what? I don’t believe those things any longer.

My Powersheets have helped me set and achieve goals this year, that have smashed those limiting beliefs to pieces. When I flipped the script inside of the prep work I wrote:

“I am a leader. In the youth group, at my church, at the preschool, and in my business!”

“My emotions helps me to connect with others, understand their side of things, and be the hands and feet of the Lord.”

“I can process and understand any information I set my mind to. Look at everything I’ve learned with the blog!”

I wrote those. But I didn’t mean them at the time. They were just part of the prep work, so I did what it said to do. But holy cow, is it empowering to look back at that, and know without a doubt that I truly believe those things, and I live into them now. All because Powersheets helped me uncover my limiting beliefs, and set goals to conquer them and become who I wanted to be.

Determining Action Steps for Where You Want to Be

After you’ve really dug into your limiting beliefs and fears, and have decided where and who you want to be, the Powersheets guide you through deciding what’s working, what isn’t, and what your action steps should be.

They have you step back and look at the big picture of your life. What fuels you? Where do you want to be when you’re at the end of your life? What matters most to you? What would your most purposeful year look like?

After you’ve done all of that, you do another goal idea brain dump based off of what you just uncovered. That way, all of your goals are centered around your purpose, and where you are trying to be when you’re 80 years old.

After brain dumping, you’re coached through simplifying those goals (hello all the heart eyes from me!) and then planning out intentional action steps that will help you reach those goals without stressing you out or overwhelming you.

This has always been a huge struggle for me. Like I said, prior to using Powersheets, most of the goals that I set were not attainable, nor were they geared towards where I actually wanted to be in life. But even when I did occasional set goals that were purposeful and attainable, I rarely reached them.

Why? For two reasons. One, I didn’t have a strong why behind the goal and therefore wasn’t fired up enough about them to be motivated to work towards them. And two, I didn’t break them down into action steps that were achievable. I’d set a goal to lose weight, but would expect myself to go all in and be at the gym 5 days a week immediately instead of breaking that into small action steps like:

• Research gyms
• Pick a gym
• Set up gym membership
• Find a workout on Pinterest
• Hit the gym once a week

Do you see how much easier those goals are to attain?? Powersheets walks you through a process of breaking down your big-picture goals into small baby steps. It’s all about making progress, and not reaching for perfection.

Monthly Tending Lists

After you’ve determined what your goals will be, and what the first action steps towards those goals are, you move into the bulk of the Powersheets — the monthly Tending Lists.

Every month starts off with more coaching. You work through deciding what your goals for that month will be (because you can’t grow all of your goals at once!), and once you’ve finished the coaching section, you transfer that month’s goals into your tending list. The tending list starts off by having you write some encouraging words to yourself – because sometimes goal tending is hard and we all need grace and encouragement.

Then, you write what your top priority is. If all goes wrong and you can only focus on one thing that month – what will it be? And finally, the page is broken into spaces to write your action items. You’ve got monthly, weekly, and daily action items.

Anything you want to turn into a habit will go into the daily action items. This would be things such as starting your morning with prayer, washing your face (please tell I’m not the only grown woman that struggles with this), and getting in enough water and steps.

The weekly action items tend to be routines you’re trying to create, such as meal planning, date nights, or getting to the gym.

And the monthly action items are usually one of two things.

1. Action items that will need to be worked on for multiple days, such as watching the Marvel movies in order, working on a project for work, or planning a vacation.
2. Or, they are one-off tasks such as opening a retirement account,  creating a seasonal bucket list, or ordering your next set of Powersheets when they launch.

All month long, you’ll want to check in with your goals and keep them on the front of mind so you can find opportunities to work towards them. One of my daily action items is always to check in with my Powersheetsbecause it feels good to be able to mark at least one box off each day. It gives me momentum to keep going. I also keep mine open to my tending list and sitting on my desk so they’re right there in my face each day.

At the end of the month, you’re coached in reviewing the past month — what you accomplished, what’s working, what isn’t, and what you’re grateful for. It’s a great way to hone the correct mindset as you go into planning out your tending list for the next month!

Quarterly Goal Refresh

A year is a long time though, and often, the goals you think you want to work towards back in January? Well, they change. Powersheets has the answer for that as well. Every 3 months, in addition to your regular goal coaching at the start of a new month, there’s a quarterly goal refresh.

This is a condensed version of the coaching portion from the beginning. It has you assess where your satisfaction levels are for various areas of life —health, friends, finances, spiritual and personal growth, spouse/significant other, family, work, and recreation. Then, you’re given space to update your goals for the next quarter.

This has been incredibly helpful to me as I’ve further narrowed down goals I made at the beginning of the year, decided on new goals, and even completed some goals.

Fun Extras

A few other fun bonuses that come with Powersheets are the sticker page and the wildcard pages. Having fun when you set goals makes it more likely that you’ll achieve those goals!

Wildcard pages were created to help you move even further to your goals. Powersheets has a free library of these, and also a pack that you can buy that are pre-cut and in color.

Alls you do is print, cut, and then tape whatever pages you’re using into your Powersheets (there are plenty of blank pages intentionally left in there just for this reason). Here are some of the pages that you can download inside the library — monthly calendar, perpetual calendar, financial check-in, monthly budget, meal plan, fitness plan, reading list, relationship tending, self-care, goal progress, weekly wellness, grocery shopping list, faith-fueled goal setting and so much more!

I use the reading list page to keep track of what I’m reading each year so that I can share my list with y’all, and I use the perpetual calendar to write in fun memories at the end of each month. That way I can look back at the end of the year and see all of the amazing things that happened quickly! I also want to try some to incorporate some of the others – especially the faith-fueled goal setting! But haven’t yet.

Now, these stickers. Before I tell you about the stickers inside of the Powersheets, let me tell you about my sticker journey. I’m a sticker queen. You know those Happy Planner sticker books? I used to buy allllll of them every time they went on sale. But, then it got to the point where I was overwhelming myself and using stickers was more stressful than fun.

So, I donated most of my books and only kept the very best ones. I still have a seasonal happy planner book, because I love to add seasonal and holiday stickers to my planner. Other than that, I donated the rest of those ones. But. I have allll of the Cultivate What Matters (the Powersheets company) sticker books. I’ve got both the 2018 and 2019 goal setting sticker books and the faith-based sticker book.

I like them because they’re small and fit well into both my Powersheets and my planner. Also, they’re really encouraging and point you back to what matters most. And of course, they’re gorgeous! But, those sticker books are just extra accessories. You certainly don’t need them to enjoy your Powersheets because, at the very front of the Powersheets, there’s an entire page of stickers for you to use! They’re so bright and colorful and really add a nice pop to your tending list if you’re like me and like to use a black pen and keep the words themselves simple. Some of my favorites are the ones that say “what matters most’ with an arrow that you can put beside a tending goal and the little sprouts that are a great reminder that some goals grow slow and you’ve just got to keep tending them.

But, do they work?

So, I’ve told you all about Powersheets, what they are, how they work, and what’s inside. I even told you a little bit about the transformation I’ve seen in myself. But you might be wondering what I’ve actually accomplished since using them. And that’s a valid question. Because sure, mindset shifts are great and all but $60 for a goal planner is a lot of it hasn’t actually moved you towards your goals.

Unfortunately, my first set of Powersheets are packed away in some box in our storage unit thanks to our recent cross-country move. Which is a huge bummer because those would shed the most light on what I’ve accomplished since the beginning of using Powersheets. But, I still have this year’s set and the few things I can remember off of the top of my head.

When I first started using Powersheets, we were working to pay off all of our debt. We had a little over 50,000 in debt, the majority of which was Russell’s student loans. Since then, we’ve not only become totally debt-free but we’ve also managed to save up an emergency fund, I’ve started my own retirement account (Russell already had one), and have been able to take vacations and fly home without putting anything on a credit card.

Then there are my business goals. Live Organized, Live Simple was just 2 months old when I started using Powersheets, and I can only contribute the growth that I’ve had to hard work, and the ability to stay on track and focused thanks to my Powersheets. I mean, I was writing blog posts and trying to figure out Pinterest still at that point. And now I’ve hit so many goals I had at the beginning, and more!

I’ve started a podcast, I launched my signature course Your Cultivated Capsule Wardrobe, I get to attend my first conference next month (which has been a major goal since I began), and I’ve also been able to give back this year.

When I started Live Organized, Live Simple, I wanted to make sure that I created something that was able to give back. So, 10% of every single sale that’s made gets donated to Red Wolf Conservation. I get teared up every month when I make my donation because it’s just so overwhelming to me that I get to do that. That something I’ve created gets to help just a tiny bit. It’s amazing and when I first started out, it was all just a dream.

Another set of goals that I’ve been working on Cultivating are my faith goals. Before I began to use Powersheets, I went to church, I volunteered and did as much extra stuff as I could, and I read my bible. But I wanted to have a deeper relationship with God. So, I’ve used my Powersheets to help me cultivate sabbath rest, a better prayer life, and the ability to sit in silence. I also have been trying hard to serve others well and be the hands and feet of God. Of course, all of this is always a work in progress and in flux but having Powersheets there to remind me of my goals makes such a difference.

And my last example for you, although I could go on and on, are my marriage goals. The biggest routine that we’ve implemented since I started digging into Powersheets and realizing that I wasn’t doing a great job at prioritizing my marriage has been date night. Every Tuesday we go on a date and almost nothing can supersede that. It’s a time for us to spend quality time together, to do something other than Netflix and chill, and a time to really connect each week. Sometimes it’s a fancier date and sometimes it’s just a picnic in a park or in our backyard. But it’s always time intentionally spent together.

My Favorite Intentional Living Tool

Powersheets make it easy to stay on track with intentional goals thanks to their simple set up. After you do your initial prep work, you’re simply coached through creating goals once a month, doing a refresh a few times a year, and checking in on a daily basis to keep what you’re working towards at the front of your mind.

When I look back at both the first goal list brain dump I made, and the one I made after digging in, I’m amazed at how many of these goals I actually reached already this year, and how many I made significant progress on.

Powersheets are for you if:

• you’re someone who sets goals but ends up forgetting about them as the year goes on or gets overwhelmed by them and stops working towards them
• you want to be part of a community that will keep you accountable with your goals
• you struggle with trying to attain perfection when working towards goals
• you struggle with knowing how to make your goals actionable
• want to set goals that fire you up but don’t know where to start
• you want clarity on what truly matters most to you
• you’re ready to go all-in on an intentional and simplified life

Are you ready to grab your own set of Powersheets? They’re launching the 2020 collection on October 16^th and they sell out FAST every year. Don’t miss your chance to grab a set, because they truly are life-changing.

Which cover do you think you’ll get? I want to know in the comments below!