It’s hard to believe, but we’re approaching the end of the year already. When the calendar turns over, many people set goals without giving it much thought because it’s something they feel like they need to do. This is why I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. Yes, the new year can be a good starting point when thinking about setting goals, but it’s important to do so with intention.
When you are working on something significant, setting thoughtful intentional goals will give you a much better chance of success. So, let’s talk about that for a bit. Where most people struggle is in trying to do too many things. If you want to have 10 things on your list fine, but you need to choose your one thing. The thing that, above all else, is the most important to you. Doing this will keep you focused and give you a much greater chance of accomplishing your most important goal. Let me tell you how this works.
Chose Wisely
When you are running a business, it can be hard to decide what is most important to focus on. The same thing goes for those working to advance in their career or navigating personal growth. Sometimes the choice gets so overwhelming we end up doing nothing as the default. Here are a few steps that will help you decide what is most important.
1. Choose a goal that aligns with your core values. For most of us this is more instinctual than something we have to think a lot about, but if you choose a goal that doesn’t align with your values you will set yourself back, not move yourself forward. Try out this exercise I use to help clients identify their core values.
2. Choose a goal that scares you a bit. Yes, if you are working on something big it should scare you a bit. If it doesn’t it is either not that important to you, or it is easily achievable. Either way, you need to push yourself a bit harder to achieve growth.
3. Compare competing goals. If you are trying to decide between multiple things that meet the first two criteria, try comparing them against each other to see how that shakes out. If you’re having trouble deciding on a goal, try out this simple rubric that I use with my clients.
Create A Plan
Ok, so you have decided what to work on. How are you actually going to get it done? If it seems overwhelming when you start to think about it that is normal. Big goals will always feel overwhelming at first. How do you make it feel less overwhelming? Make a plan. Here are a few suggestions on how to do this.
1. Write it and speak it. Start by physically writing down the goal you want to achieve and then tell another person you respect about it. This may seem silly, but science has shown that these acts make it much more likely we will achieve our goals.
2. Now that you have made it real and put more pressure on yourself 🙂, let’s break it down. Start by thinking through and writing down (by yourself or with someone else) the steps involved to reaching your goal. Don’t worry about it being in any kind of order at first, that will come. Just start with a brain dump of everything you can think of that needs to be done. Also, don’t worry about missing steps. Those will come also.
3. Once you have a big mess of everything you can think of, it is time to start putting some order to it. This is when you will start feeling like you can handle this. Start ordering the steps by dependencies. Meaning, if there are certain things that must happen to move on to the next step order them first. When a dependency isn’t obvious just group them to start. Now, get this all documented. There are many different methods to do this. I prefer the OKR (objectives and key results) method when working with clients.
4. Now you have a plan. It doesn’t have to be perfect. There will be changes to it and more details added as you move along, but you have a place to start. Time to start.
Set Up Your Environment
You have a goal and you have a plan. At this point you should feel more excited than anything else about it. Now we are to the critical step that is likely going to make the difference between achieving your goal and not. You need to create the structure in your life that will allow you to maintain focus on getting it done. How many times have you not gotten something done because you were “too busy”. Yes, I have done it also, but it’s a crap excuse. We make the time for the things that are important to us. If it is important to you, make the time. Here’s how.
1. Carve out time in your schedule each week to work on it. The key here is that the time that you are carving out must be non-negotiable. You can’t let anything take that time from you. This will be hard at first, but if you can stick to it for a while, you will love it.
2. Think about your physical environment. Do you need to physically be at a different place to work on this goal? Either because the goal requires you to be (training for a marathon), or because you mentally need to be (maybe writing a book). If your physical environment needs to be different than where you normally would be, plan for that. Where are you going to go? How are you going to get there? If it takes time to get there plan that in your calendar.
3. Add in some accountability. All of us could benefit from some outside accountability and support when working on something big. Find a friend, family member, coach or all three to help you. Many times, we cause ourselves a lot of grief because we think we should be able to do everything by ourselves. Again, this is crap. Nobody achieves anything great all by themselves. There are people that would love to help you achieve your goals. Ask them for help.
Good luck to you! If you would like to share your one thing for 2024 I would love to hear what you are working on. I am also happy to have a conversation to help you decide what that might be and how to approach it. Just send me an email on the contact page. I will answer every one I get.