the Blog

Last week, we discussed the importance of finding the overlap between your core calling goals, your starting point, and your deepest long-term priorities. It is in this intersection that we can find goals that are Organically Growing Out of Your Context—goals that make sense for you, where you are, today, and that act as a bridge to help you get to the next level.​

This week, in step 3, we’ll be talking about how to Outline (“Reverse-Engineer”) Your Goal for Clarity.

Other goal setting systems will encourage you to outline your goal for clarity—and there’s a reason for this. Our brains crave step-by-step clarity. This phase is all about being specific about your goal and breaking it down into actionable steps.

Last week, we talked about how to start uncovering the soil of your core calling. Core calling goals resonate deeply, compel you to follow-through on them, and start bearing fruit immediately. The soil of your core calling forms a rich environment for setting sustainable, healthy goals that actually energize you.

Other goal setting systems tell you to close your eyes and imagine where you want to be in 5-10 years—to dream big!—then to reverse-engineer and hustle and grind to make that dream come true.

This system grounds you in reality by helping you figure out the logical next right step for your real life. It starts by embracing your starting point as valid, and then helping you figure out the next right step to take to move you closer to where you're trying to go.

Other goal setting systems start by asking what you want for your life. This system starts by asking how you’re uniquely called as a disciple of Jesus to show up in the spaces of the world where He has placed you. What is your core calling?

I have to admit—as thrilling as the idea of a core calling is, it’s also pretty intimidating. But tapping into your core calling is an essential part of creating goals that fully resonate, that compel you to follow-through in the execution of them, and that produce a lot of satisfying fruit along the way.

So let’s begin uncovering your core calling—the soil for every sustainable and healthy goal you’ll ever set.

January 1st is only days away. With it will come a massive wave of social pressure to sit down, dream big, map out your future, and then relentlessly hustle and bend every aspect of your life to make those goals happen.

But we're not falling for that this year. We think there's a better way.

Unrealistic, untethered, shame-motivated goals are a cultural epidemic. We ourselves know all too well what it’s like to put pen to paper, get our adrenaline pumping, cross our fingers with the hopes that somehow it’ll be different this time—and then have unforeseen higher priorities come in and wash away all of our wishful thinking.

We’re done with goal setting systems that pump you up, introduce massive tension between your goal and your daily responsibilities, and then leave you feeling like a failure.

If you've been following us for long, you know that we are passionate about encouraging and empowering women to craft lifestyles that fuel their most life-giving goals. Culture likes to tell us that we can either have a thriving business or be home-loving women, but not both. We simply don't buy this. We believe we can honor the business responsibilities we've been given, and also serve our families by being fully present, especially this Christmas week.

That's why this year we've decided to shut things down and take the next week off business activities so we don't have the pressure of being on our phones, pulling out our laptops, or cramming in work blocks into our holiday plans. Instead, we're going to cozy up with our families, slow down to soak in the goodness of the season, and fully celebrate the joy of the birth of Christ.

Christmas in ten. days. away. If you're feeling a crushing sense of overwhelm at everything left to do before now and then, take a deep breath. Grab something warm to drink, and cozy up for some words of encouragement and practical tips before you launch into frenzied action.

We could never outdo Isaiah 9:6-7 or Luke 1:46-55 in an attempt to explain how incredible the Incarnation has been to world history. It is fitting that a celebration of Christ’s birth is a day with so much focus every year. God with us. It’s a profound thought. A revolution. The Light entering the darkness of history and chasing away sin and death “far as the curse is found.” It’s phenomenal.

You want to stay focused on what matters most. But with a hundred things on the to-do list, it’s kind of difficult to transpose the message of “peace on earth” to “peace within.” Here are some tips you can utilize today to step out of your frazzled hurry and into stillness of spirit.​

If you've been hanging around here for long, you know we are all about planning that is simple to implement and customizable to your unique season and lifestyle. Our undated Annual booklet does both of these things beautifully. The design perfectly combines the ideas of absolute simplicity and maximum flexibility into a calendar you can carry with you wherever you go.

The New Year is only a few weeks away, and many of you are busting out a crisp new Annual and dreaming of all 2022 will bring. If you've used our Annual in the past, you know it is full of blank bullet pages that you can use in a way that fits your current season and needs. It can be a process figuring out exactly how you want to use the blank pages of your Annual, so this post is full of inspiring ideas (most of these come straight from how team Evergreen has used the Annual this last year).

December is upon us and with it comes a flood of expectations we (+ perhaps others) place on ourselves.

"This will be the best year yet. We'll do an Advent calendar... bake Christmas cookies... and attend all the gatherings, celebrations and service projects – let's do this! We have shoeboxes to pack, stockings to stuff, lights to hang, and presents to wrap!"

It all starts from a good place – wanting our homes and hearts to reflect the seasons and all it means. But it can very quickly devolve into chaos as our seasonal bucket list turns into the world's longest holiday to-do list. It can become easy to go from a cozy Christmas craft to full on mayhem as glitter flies about the house, our children run around like goblins, and we sit in the middle of the mess and wonder where it all went wrong.

Planning while postpartum? At first glance it sounds over-the-top, almost an oxymoron. In the past we've even written about how the postpartum season can be an excellent time to take a break from your planner. So why did we choose to do an entire podcast episode on planning while postpartum?

You have to remember that when we say "planning", we are talking about self-compassionate planning. And perhaps there is not a better time to practice self-compassion than when you are in a season of recovery like the postpartum season. When we say planning while postpartum, we aren't talking about planning our biggest goals, or mapping our business' trajectory for the next year; we are talking about the simple, but extremely useful, form of day-to-day planning that helps us get out of our heads, sort our priorities, and let the non-essentials fall away.

Every Monday is a fresh start.

You have an entire week before you, a clean slate, and it can seem like the possibilities for productivity are endless!

But then you move through each day and it can be easy to slip back into dealing with whatever seems most necessary in each moment, and you find you’re only taking care of the small details, rather than making progress in the most significant areas.

Or maybe you make significant progress on your big goals, but meal planning and laundry is falling off your radar. How do you balance it all? How do you create week rhythms that serve your long term goals, your weekly work needs, and your family?

Before the Evergreen planner system, I (Clari) had never used a true day-planner. I had tried a myriad of different planners when I worked as an executive assistant before having kids, but they were the types that only had a small box, a column, or a couple of lines for each day. I also used a digital calendar to coordinate meetings and make sure nothing was double booked, but other than getting binged with meeting reminders, I didn’t really reference it or use it to effectively plan my days. My thoughts, plans and tasks were scattered among digital notes, emails, sticky notes, a half-used planner and to-do lists written on random pieces of paper.

But then I became a mom and quit my traditional job. It never occurred to me that a planner could be used to plan rest, to form life-giving family rhythms, or to plan intentional time with my kiddos—just as much as it could be used to make sure critical work projects or mundane home tasks were completed. I again wandered through my days doing what was in front of me, and working off one endlessly long to-do list.