Time to Start Planning Next Years Goals

Welp, We made it to December! How about that. I am going to ask the goofball question of, how you did on your goal setting? If you are like me? not so well. It’s not that it was too big or impossible, I just forgot about them. That was around the third month, I forgot to even check my progress. Did you have the same problem? Even if you just gave up, this is why many people think that goals don’t work. Life has its amazing ability to get in the way. That is the actual challenge of setting goals is to keep life from getting in the way. We all have to live life but you can either be inactive and just float through life and not be fulfilled or you can reach for that brass ring that is dangling out of your reach. So I have been looking into ways that can help overcome the pull from the flow of life. And I will be sharing the new tactics I have come up with and will be putting into practice for the coming year.

The Early Bird Gets the Worm

Why do you want to start thinking about your goals now? Good question and I want to delve into this. The main reason is the most obvious. So you can wisely choose your goals instead of picking a goal willy-nilly at the end of the year will increase your chances of not achieving your goal. So it is good if you decide what type of goals are before it is time to set them.goals you want to achieve and how you want to go about them before the day you are supposed to start. Photo by Georgina Steytler on Unsplash

How to plan your goals

Ok, you have goals in your head it is those one-day thoughts that run around your mind as you are stuck in traffic heading to and from work. What do you want to accomplish? What problems do you need to be rectified? Think of events that you wish you hadn’t missed. Write those thoughts down. Make yourself a list. These are your potential goals. https://www.instagram.com/p/BqnHbHfFL0W/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet Once you have a list of potential goals then go ahead and start deciding which ones you really want to achieve. Write these goals down on to paper. This action does a few key points. The first is the act of physically writing the goals down on to paper acts on your brain and make this action more concrete. You are actually more likely to complete your goal. The objective is more real in your mind’s eye. Once you have your goals written down on paper, scale the goals in difficulty from 1 – 10. After you have your goals written and scaled you can then choose 3 – 4 goals that are a 5 difficulty or higher, as the main objectives. These goals are your prime goals. If you achieve the others then that is just extra points. or If you achieve a goal in 6 months and you need a replacement goal you can take that from the list. Bonus challenge Why not choose one goal that is a 10, a tough one or a goal that makes you a little scared. Why? Because you might just surprise yourself and accomplish it in a record amount of time. So as Elenore Roosevelt said. DO one thing that scares you. I call this my Oh Crap! goal [click_to_tweet tweet=”Do you have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal? on that will make you say Oh Crap! I don’t know if I can do that? Mine is…” quote=”Share with everyone What your Oh Crap! Goal is.” theme=”style5″]

Now Plan the Attack

Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash Once you know what you are going to aim for now you can plan. How are you going to achieve that lofty level 8 goal? Well, that is the key plan it out. Write down the different steps you will need to accomplish your lofty goal. The way I plan on doing this is I am going to write down all the steps I think I need to know. Then from there, learn the details of those steps. I know that I don’t even know enough to know that I don’t know. So my steps are fluid. As I learn a new key step to my goal I will implement it and keep going. In your steps set mile markers. Say for my 100 people a day goal. One mile marker is that I have 25 people visit my site every day. Then the next marker is 50 people a day to this site. So on and so forth. I have a top goal of 1000 people to my site and that is my Oh Crap! Goal. Because if I get 1000 people to my site a day then I will probably have to move my site to a beefier server. That means money. But I should also be bringing in more money into the business too.

Let’s talk goals first

There are different types of goals. According to GoalBuddy, there are 41 different types of goals These goals range from short-term goals to BHAG or Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Which I have to admit is a better name for your large intimidating goal than my Oh Crap Goal. So I think I will adopt it into my lexicon of terms.

Step by step. #GoalSetting #resilience pic.twitter.com/xX4Xy25VSF

— Nina Schneider (@nimisc) November 23, 2018

SMART Goals

The type of goal I know the best is the SMART goal and I know people who use this goal system. This is the goals I mentioned Early last year. SMART is an acronym for

Specific

You are going to lose 20 pounds this year without surgery as opposed to I am going to lose weight.

Measurable

You can measure the 20 pounds You know if you are on track to achieving your goal. So you want to have a number on your goal.

Attainable

You are likely to be able to reach 20 pounds  while reaching 200 pounds  with out surgery is not really attainable

Relevant

Are you over weight? if not then losing weight is really not relevant to you. If it isn’t relevant you won’t be as likely as to accomplish it.

Timely

Give yourself a time limit. I will lose 20 pounds of weight in 9 months or you can get even more specific. Make the time limit with an actual time. At 11 pm on September 29th, I will have lost 20 pounds.

These work great for the vast majority of people. but this isn’t the only goal system out there.

Sprinting Goals

Photo by Todd Diemer on Unsplash Then the other goal system that I know of is the sprint goal system this is good for really pushing your self to get these goals accomplished. but you have to be focused to get it. You take your SMART goal and you break it up into 3 month long chunks then in each of those months you break those sub goals into Week long goals. So you will have 52 small goals that when finished will have allowed you to accomplish a large overall goal.

1. For example, I want to make $50,000 a year in sales on a site.
2. So my SMART goal is by Dec 31 I will have made $50,000 in sales.
3. I then break that goal down into quarters or 3-month goals of making $12,500 in sales.
4. Each of those sections gets broke down into months or I will need to make $4,166 each month
5. Then finally we break each month down into weeks or I will need to make $1041.50 each week to make my goal.

Now, this can be used in other means other than financial cases. It’s just that it is easy to see with numbers because it is measurable.

3 Words

Another type of goal system really isn’t a goal so much as a Theme for the year is the 3 words. Chris Brogan uses an overarching theme for his year. So he has 3 words that help act as a guidepost as keep him on track. I have used this and the problem I run in to is that I often forget my 3 words. So I recommend that you keep your 3 words on a stick note and place it someplace you can see it each day. So start planning how you are going to achieve your personal world domination. These steps are going to be recorded and documented for me here as the year progresses. If I stop talking about my goals on this site and on my Youtube Channel then you know that I have forgotten my goals and I have failed. So if you want to be a bug up my butt and hold me accountable then please be my guest. Next week we will keep the goal in mind still as we find ways to keep our goals in mind each day. Talk to you then and stay positive. Feature Photo by Richard Felix on Unsplash