Before You Make Goals?—?Check Yourself

If you’re like me, the start of every new year causes an eruption of the need to set goals and accomplish stuff.

Over the last few years, I’ve decided to be more intentional in the practice of setting goals and sticking to them throughout the year — here are a few principles I’ve found that have helped me accomplish more.

Why

As you probably have, I’ve started many things without finishing them. Once when I was in college I decided I was going to be a painter. I purchased a substantial amount of art supplies and painted nearly every day for months.

For Christmas, I decided I would paint a picture for each family member (partially because I was broke). The problem was, I was an awful painter, and, it turns out, and inappropriate one. Though my paintings we’re supposed to be abstract, they ended up looking quite phallic in nature.

There are many things I’ve started and in the middle of completing them can’t tell you why I’m doing them in the first place. I’ve found this causes me to loose steam, and things get grey on the way to completing a goal.

If you can’t explain to someone why you’re doing something, then it’s probably not worth starting.

?Resource: You’ve probably read it already but this is a great book to learn more about “Why”

Check Yourself

A few years back I had some lofty goals going into the upcoming year. Big goals are great, but I failed to recognize how tapped I was already. I took a step back, and started writing down my current commitments…I immediately was stressed out just looking at them.

I realized in a few hours that I was overcommitted, and spent the next week quitting things that didn’t align with what I was trying to accomplish. In the span of a few days, I had quit over ten committees and board positions freeing up massive amounts of energy and time.

Before you start any goals, analyze your life. 

Now every year I follow the same format of reviewing the vision I have for my life, my goals, and what my current commitments and opportunities are. I take into consideration my health, family and even financial situation to get an accurate picture the capacity I have or don’t have to accomplish my goals.

All of these factors help me to develop intentional goals for the coming year, and evaluate what I set out to accomplish and what I’ve actually completed year over year. I also can see what I’m currently committed to, does it line up with what I want to accomplish in the coming years.

Resource: Download a copy of my Life Vision Analysis Here

Don’t Set Yourself up For Failure

Last year, I read an article about a guy who did 100,000 pushups in a single year. As any other normal person would do, I looked at the pictures of the guy who wrote the article and thought to myself, “I can totally do that, he’s not even in that great of shape.”

Keep in mind, I had maybe completed about 25 pushups the year prior and thought I could easily tackle 200+ pushups a day. I found out quickly I had over committed, and I’m pretty sure did some permanent damage to my body and some emotional damage from those around me making fun of me.

We only have so many hours in a day that aren’t already committed and we can’t just flip a switch to greatness. 

In past years I’ve made goals for a single year that very well could fill up the rest of my life. In some late December zeal I felt like I could accomplish all of them and maintain my regular schedule of life — which ended up being completely unrealistic.

Setting unrealistic goals results in discouragement and often giving up on the goals we set. Think about the time you will have to dedicate towards what you want accomplish and work backwards.

For instance, if you decide you have two hours a day you can dedicate to your goals then estimate how much you can actually accomplish in those two hours. Give yourself some buffer room for vacations, sickness and just some days off.

Turn Everything Off and Focus

I hate to break it to you, but unless you dedicate time to working towards your goals they won’t happen. Chances are, what you want to do is going to require deep focused work and this can’t happen unless you schedule time to work towards or get better at whatever it is you want to accomplish this year.

I recommend starting with an hour a day, and you can pick how many days a week you’re going to work towards your goal. Also, get in the rhythm of working on your goals the same time every day, your brain is a muscle and will get used to the daily exercise of deep, focused work.

Resource: Here’s a good resource for Focus Time