Successful people set goals. I don’t think we need to debate this. But how do you go about setting goals? What works for you? How do you execute? How do you keep yourself accountable?
I am constantly setting goals for my professional and personal life. In the last few years I changed part of my personal goal setting process. I now sit down with my wife at the start of the financial year over a very long coffee/lunch to discuss our personal and shared goals for our family. This covers our dreams, our long term plans, the values we want to instill in our children to and gives us a chance to align our journey together. It probably drives her crazy, but I’ll touch on the benefits later in this blog.
We recap on the last 12 months and ask ourselves questions such as:
Looking at the goals we had for the previous year. What did we achieve? Where did we fall short? Where can we use our strengths this year to improve? What would we do differently?
Where did we win in the last 12 months? We reflect on the special moments, both big and small and are grateful.
What did we learn? What were our 3 best business lessons? 3 life lessons?
What were we doing when we were at peak performance?
What are key values for the next 12 months?
We then lock in what's important for the next 12 months by looking at the following 6 areas of our life:
Family
Financial
Health
Business
Spiritual
Personal Development
For each area we set 3 goals (SMART goals) for the financial year and work through 3 habits we will change to execute on our goals. (I picked this idea up from a youtube video I saw a while back) and have then modified it to include lessons I've learnt from Robin Sharma, Brendan Burchard, John Maxwell and other leaders over the years.
We also talk through:
How bad do you want it? If your goals don’t motivate you they are a waste of time.
How will you be accountable?
Where do you need support?
What are you willing to sacrifice? For me these things are sleep or TV. I have to admit I am never up to date with the latest Netflix show or have watched as many movies as other people I know but that’s not where my goals lie.
Not having time is an excuse. That just means your goal is not big enough to make it a priority. You just don't want it bad enough! I don't jump out of bed at 5pm excited every morning. But my goals are big enough, my habits strong enough. That doesn't mean I don't have a bad day when I'm sick, tired or don’t get out of bed on time. But having shared accountability and clear, written goals brings me back on track.
Some of the benefits of this approach:
Visual representation of goals
Accountability to each other
Shared journey and goals
It strengthens our relationship
Outside of our shared journey and faith it provides a compass for where we are heading together
Personally, I also like to get uncomfortable each year and move outside the comfort zone. So I add the following:
How will I move outside of my comfort zone this year?
What do I need to overcome to make this happen?
What do I anticipate to learn?
How will this help me grow?
In the past this has included the 100km Oxfam Trailwalker, MMA cage fight, Starting this blog.
Outside your comfort zone is growth. This is where I learn, grow and develop. I find insights into my character outside of the path well-travelled. I create new expectations, remove limiting beliefs and raise the bar! This is one of the most exciting parts of looking at the next year. I love growth!
Similar at work we have a bi annual off-site every 6mths to focus on our culture, business, team and individual goals, focus and plan to execute. I will talk about this in an upcoming post about the Power Of A Positive Workplace.
How do you set goals? What works for you? Leave your comments below:
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