As of this blog post, it is the New Year. I thought I would make one more goal-oriented post before getting back to changing mindsets. Not that goal setting doesn’t change mindsets because each win you are changed for the better. With each completed goal, you improve on how you approach other obstacles and setbacks in your day-to-day life. You start to believe you can do what your mind is set to. Anyhow, I want to share my strategy on completing goals this year. That way you may be able to find the success, you are after.
Why plan your year?
Why plan? Well, that depends on what you are wanting to be done? If you don’t care to grow, or you don’t see any reason to get out of your cave, or you are too busy trying to watch every episode of every show on Netflix. Then you don’t need a life-changing goal in your life. You can sit there and do nothing but eventually, you will wonder where the time went and why you didn’t do more. How did ya squander the power and beauty of your youth, and yes you still have power and youthful beauty at 45. That is because you are just hitting your stride.
IF you do want a change if you are discontent with your job, or your relationship with your wife isn’t at a level you hoped. Maybe the communication is just “Hey how you doing?” and she stays in the bedroom watching television and reading books while you are in the living room. You only see your dear bride when she comes out for food or to use the bathroom. If you want a change, then you need a goal. If you want to spend time with your kids then you need a goal. You realize that even though the dad bod is alright, you want to step up your health. To do so you need a plan.
A failure to plan is a plan to fail. If you want to be better, if you want to get better, you have to take steps to change. To improve anywhere you have to have a goal, and that is why you plan your year. That is why I have planned my year, and you can plan your year too even with the year already starting. Here is my strategy to accomplish my goals.
The Plan
The plan is simple it is broken down into four pillars these are the soon to be pillars of The Relaxed Male. They are the Man’s Mind, The Man’s Body, The Man’s Soul, and The Man’s Community. Each of these different pillars is important for men to have balance in so that they are able to relax and be content with their life. You notice I didn’t say comfortable. Comforts are alright but you want to embrace discomfort to grow and be fully content. If you are 40-50 years old, think back to when you were the “happiest”. Most of the time it was when you were young and you were struggling the hardest. Me, it was when I lived in San Diego. My wife and I, we struggled yet we had so much fun. Another time we were the happiest was when we lived in Central Texas. There was so much happiness in our day-to-day life.
I am not saying we are not happy now. Yet, there is an element of joy that is missing from your life. Hard to explain but that is why I need to help other men. Therefore, they know that perusing comfort isn’t the answer. Thinking that you can coast isn’t the objective. Don’t think you want to retire that’s the worst you can do. Your being needs these four pillars to be content.
The plan I have is to do a goal journal. This journal has several parts that are meant to help keep your spirits up and your goals present in your mind. The journal is also helping you find the best solution for the different obstacles that come up on your journey.
The First set of Pages
These first pages are made so you can find your goals and remember them.
A page is set up for the goals themselves. Each goal fits into one of the four pillars of A Relaxed Male.
- The Man’s Body – Health and fitness
- The Man’s Mind – Learning and Knowledge
- The Man’s Soul – Creativity and purpose
- The Man’s Community – Relationships with his family and community
I split the page up into 4 sections One for each pillar. I then added at least one goal to each pillar.
The Next page is for affirmations. Affirmations are great for helping you keep a positive mind and keeping your actions and mindset on track. Yeah, it may feel a bit like Stewart Smally but doing daily affirmations are helpful to keep a positive mindset. If you have never done affirmations before the key to a good, affirmation is that you have to believe them. You can read more about affirmations on Affirmations for Leadership. What I do is I have a set of affirmations that I want to use and I place my goals into the affirmations list. That way each day as I enjoy my coffee I can read my affirmations and goals out aloud.
Finally, if I have some trouble with finding a goal I also have a visualization and brain dump page. This helps you to get thoughts out of your mind and see what it will look like when you complete your goal. You have to have your why and seeing the result in your mind is part of that why.
The Daily Pages
Each day there will be a page with a specific set of sections applied to it there is the Morning section the main section and the End of the Day section.
Morning Section
Each morning I want to start my day with a heart of gratitude. That means I will write down five things I am grateful for. I also plan to make it a bit more challenging in that I will not use the same answer more than once a week. That means I can only say I am grateful for my wife once. I will share a loophole with ya if you can keep it a secret. Each thing I am grateful for with my wife is its own gratitude entry. So, I can say I am grateful for her cooking, I am grateful for her humor, I am grateful for her determination. So you can get very granular.
The Main section
The Main section is the part that is where planning comes into play. The journal is based on the 12-week year. Therefore, each day needs to find a way to make progress. You can plan your step and then write it down then at the end of the day you will write out whether you completed that task or not. I personally need to see where I am dropping the ball. This is because I do better when I know what the problem is. I can often see a pattern and correct it. If I can’t, my mastermind groups can see the pattern.
The main section is where, each day as I am getting ready or at the end of the previous day, I will write down some daily goals that will get me a step closer to completing my main goal. Each big goal has four large sub-goals with those goals being broken down into weekly goals. There will be some goals that are easy to break down, for instance, I want to lose 50lbs. That is a pound a week, and if I keep that pace, I will actually be ahead of my goal.
While others like getting 100 people to my site for a month straight is a bit more challenging when it comes to smaller sub-goals. I can just make sure that I keep a record of my sharing of my latest post to other blogs, and other strategies that are suggested to me by experts. This is an incremental baby step goal, yet I will make it happen. I know it. Anyhow, some goals will fit very nicely into the 12-week hole while other goals are going to fight me tooth and nail. That is just fine I welcome a good challenge.
- What will be written in the main section? I will have goals like this
- Walk for 15 minutes at a minimum. (Body)
- Don’t go for seconds (Body)
- Read 10 pages (Mind)
- Reach out to 4 men and start building a relationship (Soul)
- Gather a list of organizations that meet on the weekend (community)
As you can see, I will also label each goal according to the pillar it is a part of.
The Review
At the end of the day is where personal accountability is to happen. Did I accomplish my tasks? If not then why did I complete the tasks I was assigned? I do this by first looking over my To-Do list and seeing if I was able to accomplish what I was wanting to. After marking the goals done or not done, then I do my after-action review. I do this by asking these questions.
- What was the objective?
- Was it accomplished?
- What did I learn?
- What was good?
- What needs to be improved?
- Was there a big win?
These questions help me see into the why of my tasks. Why did I win or why did I fail. What can I do next time to accomplish my goal? I can then start to see the patterns and solutions better. As I learn my after-action questions I should theoretically be able to do on the spot reviews. That way I can course-correct even sooner. Will let you know if that is the case at the end of the year
That’s my plan I will be making daily efforts to make sure I am doing what I need to do. If you would like to join me on this journey and you want to have a bit of extra, accountability then you can join me on a special Facebook Group that will allow everybody to come together and support each other. The Group is called The Relaxed Male Goal Keeping. The effort is all on you. You can have the best year of your life or you can wonder why nothing exciting ever happens to you. All that is in your power.
