As the holidays come to a close, we are all thinking about our goals and what we want to achieve moving into this next year of life. So, today I wanted to share with you all my goal setting practices and tips to help you gear up for the new year.
Some of this content I originally shared over on Maria Giorlando’s blog as a collaboration a few months back. This was one of my favorite blog posts that I have ever written, so I wanted to share it with you over here today.
1. FINDING YOUR PURPOSE
Before you can start thinking about goals it is important to start out with some reflection on what YOU WANT. This means getting quiet and reflecting on what your life is like NOW and what you WANT out of life in the future. In order to do this, I suggest you go old school and put pen to paper and write. I have compiled a lengthy list of some journal prompts that may be of use to you. Don’t just think these answers, WRITE IT DOWN, brain dump it all out so that you can read them back, learn, and grow.
Grab your journal, and a hot beverage and LETS GO!
FEELINGS & ROUTINES
- How do I feel right now about life?
- Is this how I want to feel?
- Why do you think you feel this way right now?
- What is my morning routine like?
- What is my night routine like?
- What are some activities that need to get done everyday? (my non-negotiables)
- Are my routines helping me or hindering me? How? (get deep here)
- Am I still doing activities/hobbies that bring me joy? ⠀
- Am I prioritizing self care and self love everyday? If no, how can I bring this into your routine in small actionable ways?
- How much time do I REALLY spend on social media everyday?
- is this a problem? is there a purpose to this? (ex: job)
- How can I modify my routines or activities to promote the feelings I want in life?
- What do I need to spend MORE time doing?⠀
- What do I need to spend LESS time doing? ⠀ ⠀⠀
HEALTH
- What is my diet like?
- do you cook daily or eat out?
- do you prioritize a well rounded diet?
- Do I exercise?
- how often?
- is this a priority for me?
- what is my sleep schedule like?
- do you like to get up early or go to bed late?
- are you getting enough sleep? (be honest)
GOALS
- What are my biggest wins in life?
- How did I feel in the moment of these accomplishments? (Really describe the feeling. Where were you? Who were you with?)
- What were my biggest loses in life?
- Why did I lose/fail?
- Why was this project/victory so important to me?
- What did I learn from these loses? (Remember failure is not a failure if you learn from it)
- Do I still want to go after this goal/thing, or has my priorities/perspective changed on this?
- What are some of the limiting beliefs holding me back? (ex: money, beliefs from your childhood, etc.)⠀
- What are my current goals?
- How are my goals progressing?
- Have any of my goals changed?
- Are these goals serving my greater passion/mission? (if you don’t know your greater mission, think deep on this too)⠀
- If not, how can I modify these goals?⠀
- How have I been tackling goals in the past?
- Was there any reflection or check-ins in the process?
- Did you write them down daily or revisit them on the daily?
- What was the biggest issue with the way you tackled goals?
phew… that’s done! Now that reflection is over we can move on to the goal setting!
BUT DON’T SKIP THIS STEP!
Reflection is critical to move forward and without it you will not be able to grow!
2. SETTING NEW GOALS
Now that reflection is over and done, we can learn from these ideas and start to work on goal setting. When it comes to achieving your goals I want to share with you my formula for success in the next few steps.
- List your TOP 25 GOALS
- Yes, I know that is A LOT of goals. But, it does not matter, take some time and write them all down in front of you.
- Circle 5 and cross out the rest
- There is a way to cheat here, you can pick 5 business goals and 5 personal development goals! But, 10 is the absolute maximum here!
Don’t stop here. Take these 5/10 goals and move on to the next 3 steps. This is where the magic happens.
3. VISUALIZE YOUR IDEAL SELF
Now, that we have our goals in mind. It is important to see how we are going to make those goals happen. This is going to require a pen, some paper and a little creativity! You are going to be designing and creating your ideal self. Therefore, designing a persona of the next-level version of yourself that you want to embody in the new year.
- PICK A NAME: Maybe your persona is called the BADASS QUEEN or the FIERCE WARRIOR. Whatever it may be pick out a name that resonates with you and gets you FIRED UP!
- DESIGN THEIR LIFE: Think about the life that you wish to lead in order to achieve success and craft an incredible fulfilling life. Answer the following questions to get clear.
- What is this personas beliefs?
- What are their rituals?
- What does their ideal day look like?
- What kind of routines do they have?
- What actions are they taking on a daily basis? What do they avoid?
- What do they do for fun?
- Who do they surround themselves with?
- How does this persona dress?
- Who is their role model? Who do they learn from?
Now that you have your goals and persona made. I would suggest making a vision board. This can be digital or printed pictures but put it somewhere you will see it everyday. Check out this video by Maria to learn more about vision boarding!
4. TAKE ACTION
Now that you know WHO you want to become with your persona it is time to take action. What is your planning method like? Whether you use Google Calendars, an analogue diary, a bullet journal or any other type of method. Know your method and use it well.
In order to stay focused on your goals and prioritize I want to share with you the 3 x 3 x 3 rule that I learnt from Michael Hyatt . This rule allows you to stay focused on a quarterly top 3, weekly top 3 and, daily top 3 goals. This will help you to stay focused and go after the goals we set out in step 2.
I know that I said in step two that you can pick up to 5 or 10 goals. But, those top 5-10 are meant to be yearly goals. Focusing in on 3 PER QUARTER/SEASON will help you to really achieve big success with your goals instead of working on all your goals haphazardly all year. If you do the math, if you focus on 3 goals per quarter it means you can achieve TWELVE GOALS by the end of the year and you were only allowed a MAX of TEN. So, this will leave you plenty of wiggle room if you need to focus on goals for longer, etc.
5. WEEKLY CHECK-IN
In order to keep you motivated and focused it is critical to reflect back on your wins and lessons every week and to plan for the next week ahead. This may happen at close of business on Friday, or on Sunday afternoon. The day does not really matter as long as you do it. I do my weekly check-in on Sunday afternoon/nights typically for about an hour.
This is the time where we are going to do a short reflection of the past week, celebrate our wins, learn from our loses, and plan for the upcoming week.
- REFLECT on the good, bad and ugly
- What were my 3 big wins?
- What did I fail to accomplish? Why is that?
- What did I learn from the failures/wins?
- What worked for me last week? What didn’t?
- When was I most productive?
- PLAN for the week ahead and slot things in the calendar
- Schedule in appointments, meetings, driving time, etc.
- Do a sweep of your running to-do lists and add any pressing tasks to time slot in your calendar
- Schedule self care time and time with friends and families. Treat the appointments with yourself and loved ones with as much importance as an appointment with Oprah.
- WEEKLY BIG THREE
- Pick your 3 main goals for the week and circle back to your calendar to make sure there is time allocated to each of these goals.
BONUS TIP
At the end of each day, write out your top three for the next day. This will help you to go to bed with a clear focus of what NEEDS to get done tomorrow. Then all of the little tasks will be added bonuses that you completed at the end of the day.
QUESTION: HOW WILL YOU BE SETTING GOALS FOR THE YEAR?
I hope that this post helped you and allowed you to get some clarity on how to tackle goal setting this year! It is a fresh start and a time to take on something new! Let’s make it great!
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Your trusty, gutsy gal,
Nathalie xx
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Gutsy Feeling 