In case you aren’t up to speed, I’m currently in the middle of a massive three-year project (my largest personal project to date). The project is called Early to Bed, Early to Rise (EBER) because the key goals for the household are: health, wealth (AKA prosperity), and wisdom. If you click on the Category over to your right, you can see all the posts in the series.
Last time I checked in it was mid-August and I was just wrapping up my first anniversary of the project launch (the official initiation was the September Equinox of 2017. The next step was to use what I’d learned during the first year to do the preliminary replanning for year two. I thought September would be the time for that, but in fact I did not make as much traction as I needed. Sometimes the weather’s just not right and you have to wait. But things finally started forward again for me at the end of September and I’ve had some time to think about my next steps. Here’s the high level process I went through:
Step one — the retrospective. In any long project, you are going to have times when you need to look back, as well as looking forward. This is charmingly known, in the business world, as a post mortem. Kind of like a really big agile retrospective, I looked at what went well and what could have gone better. I started by asking whether I met the sub-goals I set for year one. In this case the answer was yes and no.
I did make traction on all three of my major project goals, including in ways that weren’t even apparent at the start of the year. However, in other ways, there were some big challenges. For example, the kid’s final months of the school year were really tough, due in part to an accident he had at the very end of April that caused a pretty serious concussion with effects that lasted upwards of a month. We got him through that and set up for a much better school experience this year. But that took a lot of time and energy. Still, I think that as serious as that was at the time (there were like three ER visits in three weeks if that tells you anything) we will look back at this as a critical moment for him that resulted in a lot better school situation this year. By the way, this is why having major retrospectives is so important — you gain perspective by looking back over the course of months or years that you don’t get when you are just focused month to month (or sprint to sprint, to use agile terminology).
Another issue this year was that two of my goals collided to the benefit of one and the detriment of the other. Basically, I felt like I was making great headway on my physical fitness goals so as part of my rebudgeting exercise I dropped my gym membership. So yeah, that wasn’t a good idea. Now I’m looking at a more affordable membership as a compromise because clearly I need the pressure and structure a gym provides. In other ways however, we are doing excellent on our health goals (we are eating all the vegetables!) so I’m not going to beat myself up too much on that.
Step two — the reevaluation. As part of the next phase of my project, I reevaluated everything from the top down. My mission has stayed the same (organizing enchantment at home and in the world) as has my values. Even my vision is very similar, though there are a few tweaks. Some of my goals however needed to be adjusted. I know it sounds sort of like cheating. Halfway through the project and you change the goals!? Yet this is the strength of agile projects. Last year’s information gathering gave me some big new insights into what I want — it would be foolish to discount that in my project planning moving forward. In fact, the biggest project failure is one where you spend years meeting your goal, only to discover that it wasn’t what you wanted after all. While the project goals still include being somewhere with more space and privacy, the how’s of that have been rethought. It goes without saying that this reevaluation was done in consultation with the entire household. My husband and I talked at length about our options and plans and we included the kid where it was applicable.
I also did a reevaluation of my toolkit — both magical and mundane. Based on this reevaluation, I’m dropping talisman work in favor of going back to regular sigil craft. I’m also going to continue the decan rite for the second year since I committed to it, but probably won’t continue after that. Plus I’m continuing to find the intention practice really helpful and will keep that up and even expand it. I’m still using the bullet ephemeris but have found that, interestingly, publishing Next Week in Magic has kind of derailed some of my own timing practices. But writing about things is not the same as doing them, so I’m going to remedy that lapse, probably with a PGM focus instead of a Solomonic one. And while I enjoy paper tracking, there are other solutions we need (like a family wall calendar and weekly scheduler that we can all see what’s going on).
Step three — the renewal. The last two months of the year are going to be very important, magically. Jupiter enters Sagittarius Nov 8 before dawn — so technically still the 1st lunar day (here in pacific time zone at least). Since my own Jupiter is in Sagittarius, this is an auspicious time for me. That means I’m doing extra detailed planning to set myself up success in 2019. For example, I’m working on the Moonth of Magic lunar day for a month ritual and will be performing it myself starting on November 7th. If it works well, then I’ll release it here on the site in case people want to do it themselves in the last lunar month of the year. And if I’m going to do a shoal a week (which is the commitment I’ve made) I need to rebuild habits so that it will happen. Finally, the rebudgeting effort is complete and that means that part of the plan is implementing the changes. It’s always amazing to me how small changes in a planned budget can have huge impacts on your life, financially and non. There’ll probably be a post on this at some point. Plus I have tasks around remedying the places where my goals have slipped. This includes very mundane items as well as magical ones. And the new goals for the first three quarters of 2019 will need regular effort.
Phew, so that’s my year two replanning. Are you doing any planning of your own for next year? Because now’s the time to get started (and if you’re curious, I have some services to help).
