January 2024 and I am working on setting goals. Goals for me personally and my businesses. More than the customary lose weight, get rich and stop drinking wine (although those are still on my wish list) what are my actual goals for 2024? What do I want to achieve this year and how am I going to make sure I get it done?
Sometimes it comes down to how bad do I want it? How much effort and energy am I prepared to put towards achieving this goal? How motivated am I? How challenging are the barriers?
Life is really busy and without goals it can seem a bit like ‘groundhog day’. Same sh*t different day. Find yourself complaining about the same things? Do something to change it then. You can’t keep doing the things the same way and expect different results.
I find it easier to set work goals than personal ones. I think that is because work ones have less emotion tied up in them. Personal ones are so much more meaningful though but I find often come with bigger challenges to overcome.
I like to set goals. I function well with goals and get a great sense of achievement when I get those goals ticked off. Says something about my personality I’m sure but there you have it. Works for me. I think of it as problem solving. How do I solve the problem, what do I need to do to reach my goal?
I plan. That’s how.
I believe there are five key steps to goal setting.
- Dream Big – Brainstorm your ideas of what you want. Dream big and without thinking about the why nots, barriers or what others might think.
- Decide what it is you want and why you want it – From your brainstorm of dreams pinning it down to what you want and most importantly the why. Why you want it will be the key to bringing you back to it if you fall off track
- Write it down – Writing it down makes it real. Visualise it, feel it, know you are going to achieve it.
- Make a plan – These are the action steps you need to take in order to reach your goal. Be specific here. What exactly are you going to do each week to reach your goal?
- Work on that plan every single day – This is where I use a goal planner diary to keep me on task.
You can make a wish but without action towards it then it isn’t likely to come true. For a couple of years now I have used a goal digger diary and although I haven’t been entirely religious with it, it does help to keep me on track to get what I want.
Before I found the goal digger diary I had a simple notebook. In that notebook I wrote down my goals and re-read it every day to remind me what I wanted and keep me on track to achieving them. When I reached them I ticked them off. So satisfying that ‘teacher marked my work’ tick.
I usually set goals for 3 month periods. I find it hard to have a goal longer than that but doesn’t mean I couldn’t if I wanted it bad enough I would still break it down the same way. I break down what I want to achieve in 3 months into steps of what I have to do to get there and then put that into weekly actions. These weekly actions I assess on a Sunday night and reset for the upcoming week based on how I went the previous week.
I once dreamed I wanted to have a range of earrings that made me feel good and I wanted to share those earrings with others. I drafted some designs (literally pen and paper). I had my personal graphic designer (thanks husband) turn my designs into electronic files. I sourced a supplier to supply material, to cut and engrave my designs. Now I have a website selling online, my earrings are stocked in a couple of small stores and the best part is I get such absolute pleasure when I see women wearing my dream and looking Positively Sio beautiful.
Goals for 2024? Absolutely! What about you?