3 Steps to Set Yourself Up for a Winning Year

Aaaaand….. It’s goal setting time again! It’s actually one of my favorite times of the year. It’s a moment filled with reflection, celebration and hope at the year to come. It’s a moment when we get to spend time with friends and family and with ourselves as we think about what we’ve been through, accomplished and in some cases survived, as we prepare for the year ahead.

There are many ways you can set goals. I have my own process as well. It works for me and over the years I’ve fine-tuned it, adding things to it, removing other that didn’t help and I want to share this year’s approach with you. It’s a simple 3-step process which I hope can inspire and help you as you start thinking about setting your goals this year.

Step 1: Review the year

This year, I added something which I have never done in the past. I felt was worthwhile because I went through a massive change in 2021. As you may already know, I left my 9-5 to pursue my passion in coaching. To take my progress to the next level, I really needed to take some time to reflect. So, the one thing I added was to take that time. I usually just dive right in, without reviewing what happened in the past year and certainly not taking time to celebrate successes (gasp…!). These are the elements I have been exploring:

• What went well and celebrate that!
• What I would have done differently and what my lessons are
• What I am most proud of and celebrate!
• What I want to Stop, Start and Continue

It’s also a good moment to build on the year before and start to roughly sketch out what areas I want to focus on and think about what goals I want to achieve.

And I’ll say it again…. Take time to celebrate your successes!

Step 2: Set your goals

Imagine you have to go somewhere you’ve never been. In the old days, you’d pull out a map and figure out your route. Today, you’re more likely to plot your starting and end points into Waze, Google Maps or whatever your app of choice is and presto! You have your route clearly outlined. Setting your goals is pretty much the same thing.

I love using apps to determine the route because it has the benefit of warning you when you come to a traffic jam and offers alternative routes, it continually analyses what’s going on, on the roads to give you the quickest way there.

Once you have clarity as to where you are and what you’ve accomplished, it’s time to decide where you want to go. That’s the fun part! You get to imagine the possibilities and the potential different ways you can get there. It’s easier to do now that you’ve evaluated how you did this year because you already have a skeleton and markers of what worked and didn’t work.

Not sure how many goals you should set?

There’s no prescription. Last year, I only focused on 2 goals. The year before I had 7 goals. This year, I’m still defining, but likely no more than 3 or 4. It really is up to you. If you get excited at the thought of how many goals you outline and reaching them, then it’s the right number. If not, either too few or too many, go back to the drawing board.

There’s nothing that says you need to set your goals all in one sitting. I did a first draft a couple of weeks ago and I’m still fine-tuning, with the objective to have it “set in stone” by Jan 1, so I can hit the ground running. I say “set in stone” in quotation marks because I will review and adjust at different times throughout the year. Sometimes, unexpected things happen and I want to remain flexible.

There are different life arenas to focus on

This year I decided to focus on 3 or 4 areas where I want to make the most significant headway. Here are all of the arenas you can choose from:

• Health: focuses on physical health. It’s about the energy I want to have, how well I feel physically, including sleep, exercise and food choices
• Mental/Emotional: focuses on attitude and mindset and how I want to protect this space
• Partner/Lover/Self-Love: focuses on my partner relationship and how I want to continue nurturing and growing our relationship. If you are not with a partner, the focus is on the loving connection with yourself
• Family and Friends: focuses on my extended relationships
• Mission: focuses on career and contribution to the world
• Experiences: focuses on creating and collecting experiences rather than stuff
• Spirit: focuses on living my values and being connected to a higher force
• Finances: focuses on a healthy financial life. For me a big part of it is connected to my mission
• Learning: focuses on the skills I want to develop

Asking the right questions is a key part of the equation

Along with figuring out what my goals are, they help me to finetune them even further and to start defining a more concrete plan. Here are the questions, I’ve been asking:

• What am I willing to do to make my dream come true? What resources do I need? How resourceful am I willing to be?
• Who do I need to grow into to make sure I succeed?
• What skills do I need to work on?
• What habits do I need to put in place?
• What am I willing to give up?
• Who do I need to surround myself with? Do I have the right mentors?

Why am I setting these goals?

It’s easy to set goals and to get on the road to reaching them. In the beginning, we’re all full of energy and good intentions. But what happens when that initial jolt wanes or you hit your first roadblock? How do you keep yourself motivated to keep moving forward? By knowing WHY you are pursuing these goals.

Since I’ve been sick, I’ve spent a lot of time sleeping and recovering in front of the boob tube. One of the things I’ve watched a lot recently is other people living their best life on TV. They’re buying their dream homes for example and in some cases, their dream ISLAND! So, it’s important for me to have a BIG WHY, an emotion-laden why as the motivation behind my goals. Why do I want my business to succeed? So I don’t end up living under a bridge! But seriously, why? Because I have a vision for what I want my life to look like and being a coach who gets results for her clients can help me achieve that.

Step 3: Map it all out

This year, I decided to create a battle board! I’m going to take a couple of pieces of poster board, and create 6 sections on each, so I have 12 monthly spaces. In each space, I’m going to write the month at the top and what I want to accomplish each month, what content I want to create, books I want to read, videos I want to make, etc… and put it on my wall. I want to be able to cross things off as I move. I may not do all 12 months, but I can certainly start with the first quarter. I’m also going to plan my vacations and anything else I want on my radar.

Then, once I’ve created it, I can look at it every morning before I start working to help me prioritize my tasks. I feel that having everything top of mind and at my fingertips will help me stay on track much more easily and keep me motivated to cross things off the list! Because dreaming of my goals isn’t enough, I have to do the work to make it happen.

All this will be done on a backdrop of a vision board. That’s going to be my big why! What does the life I imagine look like and that will put displayed on the wall in front of me, so I can look at it when motivation is nowhere to be found. I’m looking forward to seeing how this new process helps me to stay on track and achieving my goals!

A couple more tips

If you have a special project that doesn’t really fit within an overarching bigger goal you’ve set for yourself, you can set a mini month-long goal as a one-off.

When you are setting new habits, consistency is key. Use a habit tracker to make sure you stay on top of it. It’s important to note that while the general philosophy is that you create new habits after 21 days, the truth is it takes a bit longer than that for you to do these new things automagically. The time is closer to 66 days before consistent action becomes a habit. Until that happens, remember to be intentional with your time and your actions.

Final Thoughts

Do you want to stack the deck on your side, or do you want to leave your future success to chance? Setting goals, measuring against those goals on a weekly basis, adjusting as time goes is a good way to pave the road to success. Let’s make 2022 your best year yet! If you have any tips and tricks for setting and achieving goals, please feel free to share! We can use more wisdom!