2022 Goal Setting – This Year Needs Something Different
Kathy Parks
Career Coach | Leadership Coach | Professional Development | Job Search | Job Transition | Mock Interviewing | Helping you re-imagine what your career & life could be...
Have you noticed how many unsolicited emails there are in your inbox these days giving you new tips for goal setting? Yup – it’s that time of year alright – even though we may not be ready for it – 2022 is here. So here’s another one for you.
Each year I do a goal setting message with the latest and greatest tips for setting bright and shiny goals for the new year, a clean slate ahead.?Years ago, I started with New Year’s Resolutions but after a while it became just goal setting and the process I was talking about each year became simpler and simpler. Because if you make it too complicated, no one is going to do it anyway. However now, after yet another year of stress, ambiguity and uncertainty it almost seems pointless to set goals after what we’ve been through.?But of course, that just makes it the most important thing we can do! It’s one of the few things that we really can control right now, when there’s so much we can’t.?Taking control over something can help us get our life back and maybe even some feeling of that ‘normalcy’ we are all looking for.
After looking at what other people are suggesting, I’m going with simple and ambitious for this new year. I’m following Michael Bungay-Stanier, coach and author, who is coming out with a new book soon called “How to Begin: Start Doing Something That Matters”. And I agree with him when he says you should set a ‘worthy’ goal this year.
What is a worthy goal you ask and why is that important? A worthy goal is about playing big, something bigger than just you, because playing small doesn’t serve you or the world anymore. So, worthy of your life, your talents and worthy of the world. After all we’ve been through the last 2 years it almost seems we should do nothing less, don’t you think? Also, I’m always asking people to look out to their older self (at the end of career or life) and think about what they might regret not doing.?This might just be that thing and the time to start it is now.
You can set all the usual goals you want as well, but Michael says that a worthy goal should be thrilling, important and daunting and we’ll look at what he says about each piece:
And that all sounds great, especially if something pops into your head right away, giving you that purpose that you’ve always wanted to have.?But what if you can’t think of anything worthy right now – you are on board with the idea but how you do you figure out what your real ‘worthy’ goal should be? Michael suggests that you look at your goal from 3 different lenses:
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Michael also says that you should make several drafts of your worthy goal and test each draft, so they build on each other and to see if it is viable or ambitious enough.?Use action verbs such as build, create, disrupt, change, reinvent etc. so that you will start with action, make it really specific and also have a time commitment – when are you going to have it done by?
The other thing that might help you if you are struggling with figuring out your worthy goal, think about it and put it out there and then let it go.?It may come to you later.?I did that and had an idea, but I thought no, don’t know how to do that, so I pushed it away.?But it kept coming back.?That means something.
Or another way – take time to reflect on all the things you have had to deal with these last 2 years and what needs to change for the better? We have pivoted and adapted and made accommodations, what is the one thing that you can take into the new year from what you have learned from all of this? What has been the biggest challenge or pain or even joy that you can use to help others??And is this something that will matter in 5 years – to you or someone else?
Take some time to formulate but don’t take too much.?The year will slip by as it always does, faster than you expect, kicking you out at the end of 2022 with fingers on keyboard, still trying to figure it out. Abraham Lincoln said, “the best way to predict the future is to create it”. Take some control, pick a goal worthy of your life and the world, set up some action steps, and let’s get going!
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