2022 Isn't Far Away: Start Setting Up Goals
Take what you gathered from your annual review and start building your goals. This is the second article in a series to help you set yourself up for success in the coming year.
Time for Fresh Perspective: On You. Conducting an Annual Review
2022 Isn't Far Away: Start Setting Up Goals
Set Yourself Up For Success: Planning Your Goals for the Upcoming Year
Building a Winning Year: Completing an Annual Review and Planning Session With Your Team
Beginning to plan the year ahead can seem like a daunting task. For many, that becomes the barrier to setting goals at all. Hopefully, with a fresh perspective on what the current year has delivered, you can use that as a good starting point for where you’d like to go in the upcoming year. And if a year is too far to think ahead, start with what you want to accomplish in the next ninety days. I have talked about managing shorter periods of time before. I call them goal SPRINTS. This is a good way to get started with more manageable periods of time. It can feel overwhelming to try to guess at what all of the next year will look like. You may have some visionary thoughts to what the end of 2022 will look like, but the next three months will be easier to predict and start planning versus what will happen next October.
Before you get into the early stages of setting up goals for yourself, take a final few minutes with what you reflected upon from your last exercise. This is the time to be a little selfish and think about what you need. If you didn’t accomplish some of the things you wanted throughout the course of the year, that’s OK. Forgive yourself for the things that didn’t work out exactly as planned. There is no value in holding on to something that cannot be fixed in the past. You now have the opportunity to address it again, if you choose. Also, take a moment to enjoy where you currently are. I am certain there are things that are working well. Acknowledge that. And finally, be kind to your future self. Don’t try to make up for lost ground by heaping on a ton of things for your future self to have to deal with.
That leads to these next few steps that will help you set up for how you will plan and establish your goals for the new year.
Limit the number and be realistic
As you lay out the framework for your goals, limit the number you are trying to accomplish. As part of your planning, list out the things you maywant to achieve. You need to be realistic. This is where taking the notes from your reflection session can come in handy. Were you too aggressive in your goals before? What can you take from that to ensure you do not repeat that action? Ultimately, you want to avoid setting your future self up for another challenging set of circumstances. By having a full list of potential goals, you’ll have a perfect place to revisit if you need to add more later.
Be very realistic with yourself and what will be possible. We all have a tendency to take on more than is actually possible. I fight with this nearly every week. We have aspirations to do so much, when in reality there isn’t enough time or energy for everything we sign our future selves up for. Stay grounded in reality.
What will make the most significant difference for you fastest?
As part of your refinement and prioritization process, determine which goals are likely to have the biggest impact that will make a difference in the least amount of time. As part of that process, understand why that goal or goals will make the difference you believe it will. This can help flush out any loose ends as to how you are prioritizing your goals and the corresponding activities that will accompany them.
What new tools will you need for success?
As you begin to narrow the list down, you’ll also want to identify what other resources you will need to be successful in achieving the desired outcomes. The earlier you capture these needs, the more time you’ll have to get them in place before you begin your timeline for achieving the goals. If you know now that you want to use a new application for tracking your goals, you can download that now and begin to get familiar with using the new application. That will also ensure it does not become a barrier or excuse as to why you haven’t started working towards your goal.
Now is the time to begin thinking about how you’ll measure your progress and success for your new year goals. Are there things you need to get in place sooner versus later, so they are ready to go? As an example, I use a custom planner that I create for my daily planning. I need to begin working on that in advance of January, so the new version for the new year is ready before January first. You may have some of those type of preparation steps you’ll need as well. It could be as simple as ordering the new calendar or planner for next year now, so you know you’ll have it.
In the next article, I’ll share some ideas and tools you may want to explore ahead of finalizing and detailing your goals. These can help in the planning, follow-up, and scheduling of actions and activities related to your goals. They can also help to track and remind you of what is coming up.
Planning for your goals is a multistep process. I hate to call it pre-planning because I believe it is all part of the same process. The steps above prepare you to finalize how you will select the goals that you capture and detail out with specific steps. This will all lead to setting your SMARTER goals or establishing the SPRINTS you will put in place for the year ahead.
How will you ensure you are setting up your future self to be successful with your new goals once they are defined?
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