Deang with Disappointment

Disappointment!?In life, in business, in all aspects of our life we deal with disappointment. How one dealt with disappointment affects the success or failure of one’s endeavors.?In a recent #TuesdayTactics I discussed briefly disappointment, in the form of having my wrist rebroken and getting a new cast when I thought the cast would be removed.?This is very disappointing.

The thought of one expectation and getting a different outcome is what leads to disappointment.?A mentor of mine always said, set the expectation right so you won’t be disappointed.?For me that should have meant, the cast will be renewed again, rather than it is coming off.?Setting the right expectations help limit or eliminate disappointment.

However, what is the right expectation to set??There are a lot of ways you can set expectations.?In Business, it should come down to goals.?Goal setting is extremely important.?How you set goals ranges the gambit.?There are many theories:

1.??????Short Term goals building to long term goals

2.??????Set realistic goals

3.??????Set small goals and hit them

4.??????Set large Goals

5.??????Period Strategy

Goal Setting is important and accomplishing them is an important human strategy we took with us from primordial (Anderman, 2009) and we keep it going every day.?Going forward you will see a different blog post at least once a week maybe more, but the articles will be much more detailed and research based.?While some have been research focused in the past some have been opinionated.?I will be taking this forum to a new level in 2022 and beyond and will be delving deeper into each subject matter posted from a scholarly tone so as to move forward discussions and give you the reader foundations to build your business the right way whether you be a financial advisor or a business owner.?In this post I will focus on goal setting and goal review and detail out my goals for 2022 and what can be done to fix them and accomplish them.

2020

In 2020 I set out multiple goals.?I hit 50% of them.?Looking back these were stretch goals, one of the three types of goal setting created which include easy goals, stretch goals, and unattainable goals (Anderman, 2009).?Most people choose either easy goals or stretch goals or some type of combination.?I usually go for the stretch and unattainable, but this creates a psychological problem and makes people less likely to focus on their goals.?I know personally I felt dejected in 2020 as I wasn’t hitting my goals, and things stopped moving forward.?Doesn’t mean I wasn’t trying but it meant I kept seeing things fall further and further away and I started to get mentally paralyzed.

2021

Understanding first why we set goals, to give us a direction and to help us survive (Anderman, 2009) is key.?In the past our survival literally meant catching food for the tribe, now our survival could be keeping a business alive, or maintaining our accepted level of lifestyle.?

In order to make sure I will be hitting these goals and not taking myself off track I will be doing shorter and more attainable goals.?I will be applying a period goal strategy, where I’m breaking the year into 12 week periods and focusing just for those 12 weeks.?While I have annual goals, I broke them down so I can focus more on obtaining those 12 weeks, and I built different things into the goal setting.

As regular readers know I usually post my goals here for accountability, but I will not do that this year.?My goals will hang on my wall and I’ll check them off as I accomplish them.?Goal setting is a part of our lives and it is something we need to keep doing.?However, changing the strategy and how we focus on them is more important.

The first is professional, then personal, and finally self-development.?I will also share some goals I have broken out for periods in 2015 and you can see how they will build on each other.?I have left off the professional segments for reasons I mentioned above, but here are my personal and self-development goals.

Professional

·??????January 1st – March 20th

o??All right, I am sharing one goal.?I plan on writing one well researched article a week and sharing an audio file a week in the next 12 weeks.

·??????At the end of this period I will reassess what I need to do and make changes for this particular goal.

Personal

·??????January 1st –March 20th?(Period 1)

o???Everyday not travelling take dogs for a 3-4 mile walk

o??Use Roller Skies twice a week – build to two miles

o??Date night Once a week with Myrta

o??Spend time with Megan where I’m present with her (and follow through on adoption process)

·??????April 1st – June 20th?(Period 2)

o??Every day not travelling take dogs for a 5 mile walk

o??Roller skies three times a week

o??Swimming four times a week

o??Bike riding 3 times a week

o??Date Night Once a week with Myrta

o??Spend four days present with Megan

·??????July 1st – September 31st?(period 3)

o??Continue exercise routine

o??Focus on weight loss, losing 2 pounds a week to get to target goal of 210

o??Spend 4 days with Megan present

o??Spend a week with Myrta where I’m present

·??????October 1st?to December 20th?(period 4)

o??End the period at 210 pounds

o??Take care of the nagging injuries I need to clear up

o??All of the above

Self – Development

·??????Period 1

o??Start LUTCF Course

o??Deep dive into article and be scholarly in practice

·??????Period 2

o??Continue LUTCF courses, 2 and 3

·??????Period 3

o??Finish LUTCF courses

o??Start Norwegian courses

·??????Period 4

o??Start CLU courses.

Now the real part is how this will be accomplished.?I have created a grid, the two pages QRP, or Quick reaction plan.?I have scheduled regular reviews to check progress and see where I need to go and what I need to accomplish or make changes to.?I am carrying this with me everywhere I go.?How do others mark and remember their goals??There are a few ways but are they productive and are they effective??This is the question we need to look at.?How deep do you go into your goal setting??Is your team aware of goals and are there clear assignments or tasks for them to accomplish and help you accomplish?

Reference:

Goal Setting. (2009). Psychology of Classroom Learning: An Encyclopedia. E. M. Anderman and L. H. Anderman.

?????????????Detroit, Macmillan Reference USA. 1: 442-446.

I do believe these are all great theories.?I do tend to subscribe to the S.M.A.R.T. theory.?Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time Oriented (SMART).?I build my goals into this format, but really put things together and try to set realistic expectations.?For example, if I wanted to grow my business by 15%, that would be my expectation, but I know things will go wrong, things will happen, so the 15% growth is about setting the right balance and expectation, that I will hit it, but that things will go wrong.?In order to do this, I set small obtainable goals, with small expectations and then grow and build from there.?As you can see I break my goals into small bits and pieces, and set the expectations that I need to hit them.

The important thing to understand is you have to readjust your expectations and then you limit your disappointment.?But what if you are disappointed, how do you deal with it??Here are some quick tips:

1.??????Reset Your Goals

2.??????Adjust your mindset

3.??????Get others involved

4.??????Talk about it

5.??????Align back with your vision

6.??????Take time off

How you prevent and deal with disappointment is important.?How you teach it, is even more important.