Creating Goals that Are Worthy of You

In Before You Choose Your Goals, Do This I shared the first step to creating your goals for 2018: reflecting back on all you’ve accomplished this past year.

In this article I’m going to go over the whole process I use for setting worthy goals.

My background is in psychology and I’m one of those people who, after spending 6 years working on my undergraduate and graduate degree, realized I didn’t like where my studies were taking me and so opted for something else.

I was really discouraged and disappointed with where my life had gone and when I took an entry level corporate position I decided I was not going to stay there for long.

However, I thrived in that position and in the next 6 years I was promoted 5 times and it had everything to do with my mindset and my practice of setting goals.

I use this combination of mindset and action goals to help my clients achieve the results that they have been craving without having to work themselves into the ground. The tools and exercises I use with my clients help them to identify their own mindset and start zeroing in on the actions that are going to lead them to their ultimate goal.

Although we’re not getting into mindset here, there are plenty of episodes I’ve released that definitely help you with mindset, for this episode I’m diving into the exercise I’ve been using for the past several years for myself and on occasion with my clients to create goals.

This is not something to rush through so be sure you can dedicate a decent amount of time to give each question some thought.

A Process for Creating Worthy Goals

Pull out a blank piece of paper or on your electronic device write down and answer the following questions based on the prior year:

1. What were my successes and opportunities (personal and professional)?

If you read Before You Choose Your Goals, Do This, you may already have done this.

Do not do this quickly. Really dig deep and look at every area of your life: health, finances, relationships, career, spirituality, personal development, etc. Ask others to help you with this one if you don’t have a good list going. We often dismiss our successes thinking they are no big deal. They are a big deal and they should be acknowledged.

2. What are the lessons I learned?

This may be easier to come up with if you are someone who tends to focus on or beat yourself up over mistakes. Think of the things that happened that prompted you to think, “I won’t be doing that again.”

3. What surprised me?

It's the unexpected that helps us to make our blind spots a little smaller. What results, outcomes, opportunities, or consequences did you not expect - good, bad or neutral?

4. Based on my Values and who I REALLY AM, what do I want?

Don’t hold back, be honest about what you want to happen in the coming year. Don’t worry about how it’s going to happen.

You’ll use this section later to calibrate your answers to make sure your goals are worthy of you. These can't be things that incrementally build on the goals you've accomplished (or did not accomplish) last year. These goals must reflect your values and focus on creating, rather than changing, a situation or relationship in your life.

For instance, the goal would not be to lose 10 pounds. A goal that is worthy of you is to wake in the morning feeling refreshed and energized, comfortable in your own skin.

Part of attaining that goal may include changing your nutrition or getting more activity in your day but 10 pounds is arbitrary and does not guarantee you'll feel energized. To feel refreshed and energized in the morning will call on more than diet and exercise and will have a greater ripple effect than the scale moving or your clothing size changing.

Find What Intrigues and Interests you

5. What from the list of answers above informs me how I can recreate any area of my personal or professional life? (Circle or highlight the one’s that stand out)

Of the items you circled or highlighted pick four or five. These are your focus areas in 2018.

Define your overarching goal and set milestones

From here you will create a plan and milestones (or smaller goals) that will help you to achieve your overarching goals. You will also use these focus areas to weigh whether or not to let some things go or take advantage of a new opportunity.

6. Create your goals or metrics based on your focus areas.

For example, you’re focus area may be to increase your income or profitability margin. You’ll want to define what that means. It may be to make to make $5,000 more than last year. A metric may be to ask for a raise, start a side-business or improve your retention rate.

Another example, your focus area may be to run a Spartan race successfully. You’ll first want to define what “successfully” means to you. Based on that definition you’ll create metrics and milestones to help you get there. It may be how fast you can run 5 miles, being able to do pull-ups, etc.

With each goal create an action plan with milestones that will take you to your goal.

Plug in celebrations and rewards for hitting the milestones and get an accountability partner. Having another person who will witness your challenges and successes will motivate you to stay on track.

Make sure the goals you choose reflect your highest values and get you excited. The satisfaction you feel on achieving your goals is directly related to choosing the right goals for you, the ones that stretched you a bit, and how well you executed your plan.

A goal that is worthy of you calls you to express the best parts of you and motivates you to keep going, even when staying on track is tough. And upon reaching a goal that is worth of you, you will feel pure joy.

Can't Seem to Find the Time?

One thing I hear many people confess is that they want to put in the work to create meaningful and worthy goals but they can't seem to find the time to get it done.

If you feel like you are constantly in a race with the clock or that your to-do list, rather than getting smaller as the day goes on, seem to grow, you're going to want to consider a workshop I am doing to help free up hours in your week.

No kidding! There are invisible (and not so invisible) time wasters that, throughout the week, steal your time and leave you working longer hours or falling behind. I'm going to help you stop the time wasters from pushing work into your personal time.

Take a look at the Time Freedom Workshop and if it sounds like something you need now, register. Even if you can't be on the call live register because it will be recorded. I will send you the recording and the worksheets and you can do them at your leisure.

As always, I hope this was of value to you and here’s to your success!

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