Forget Goal-Setting, Try Dream-Setting
Ivna Curi, MBA
Amplify Women's Voices | Self-Advocacy & Assertive Communication Skills | Create Speaking Up Inclusive Work Cultures | Author 'Unapologetic Voice' | Podcast Speak Your Mind Unapologetically | TEDx| Forbes
The number one regret of the dying was "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me." according to study by palliative nurse Bronnie Ware?in her book, The Top 5 Regrets Of The Dying.
Many ambitious people achieve goals that don’t matter much to their life, career plan, or happiness. They achieve goals that they later realize they didn’t really want.
Other people never feel motivated in the first place actually work hard towards their goals. even if they are written down and SMART goals, because deep down they know they don't really desire accomplishing that goal.
What't missing?
Start your New Year in 2022 preparing to achieve your biggest dreams:?Click here to join me in this FREE live New Year Career Planning Workshop.
Why People Regret How They Lived Their Lives
In our busy lives, we focus more than ever on getting things done and moving forward fast, no matter what. We are incredibly busy at work, with life chores, and scheduled activities that we don't even have time to stop, wonder, and reflect. We are hardly ever alone with free time and on a leisurely pace to have a moment to think about who we are, what we want, and how we want to live our lives.
We get social validation from friends, family, coworkers, and even strangers when we show status symbols like job titles, awards, big houses, fancy cars, top companies, and so on. That validation keeps us moving in that direction even if it goes against the inner desires.
Then the months fly, the years disappear, the decades continue to move, and some of us finally find ourselves in retirement age confused and asking ourselves what we really want.
That is why the goal-setting process needs to start before the goals are set. You need to start with dream setting and dream alignment. That change alone will give you motivation, courage, and the compass to achieve and adapt your goals.
Here’s a 3-part goal-setting framework to help you set goals that will keep you motivated, feeling authentic, and moving in the right direction.
Dream alignment?– To avoid setting goals that you’ll regret later.
High-level goals?– To get your priorities right.
Tactical goals?– To set yourself up for success and to keep motivated.
Let’s break it down.
Are you ready to plan out your 2022 to achieve your biggest dreams??Click here to join me in this FREE live New Year Career Planning Workshop.
Set And Align Your Dreams
Get clear on your values and dreams. Understand what matters the most to you. That way you won’t get to the end of a year, decade, or life feeling regrets because you pursued someone else’s dream, not yours.
First, define success to you.?
Think about what makes you happy. What would a perfect day look like? Success is usually vague and often associated with money, status, power, and material possessions. However, for you it may mean more time with loved ones, health, freedom as you define it, financial independence, using your talents, service, spiritual development, or others.
Second, prioritize the areas of your life.?
Strategy is about prioritizing amongst many options. You have finite time and energy. Rank each area of your life in terms of what you want to prioritize in the next year: career, income, savings, fun, health, faith, love, family, friends, self-development, spirituality, etc. Prioritize based on how far you are from ideal and how important it is for you.
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Third, define your 10-year vision.?
Most people underestimate what they can achieve in 10 years but overestimate what they can achieve in 1 year. Go big on your 10-year vision. You can change career, income, and country. You can build an empire.
Set Your High-Level Goals
Get clear on your priorities for the year and on where you want to put most of your time. That way, if you have major setbacks during the year, you’ll know where to put your energy.
First, define your 1-year SMART goals?
Define them in your priority areas of life and aligned with your 10-year vision you set up earlier.
Second, clarify what is the top goal?
Find out your top goal from all of your 1-year goals that would make you feel successful even if it was the only thing you achieved. Ideally this one goal would help you with other goals. For example, it could be to manage your time better by waking up at 5am. That way you’ll have more time for your exercise and reading goals.
Third, find out what are the time stealers.
What took your time from the previous year that you could eliminate to create more space for new and more important goals. Is it Netflix, spending time with people who you don’t like, mindless social media?
Get clear on your priorities for the year and on where you want to put most of your time. That way, if you have major setbacks during the year, you’ll know where to put your energy.
Set Your Tactical Goals
Goals feel like big unattainable things if we don’t break them down and think about how we’ll incorporate them into our daily lives. That is why you need some tactical planning.
First, write down sub-goals?
What are the smaller goals for each of your main goals for the year. That will increase your focus and motivation.
Second, outline the habits?
What are the habits that will move you towards your goals. You can control habits, but you can’t always control goal outcomes. If you choose the right habits, like working out 30 min a day, eating one salad a day, reading for 30 min a day, working on an important project every Saturday morning, and so on, you’ll definitely move the needle towards your goal and feel motivated along the way.
Third, make sure you have a tracking process.
Set up a tracking process for?your goals, sub-goals, and habits. Tracking keeps you motivated and allows you to course correct along the way. Consider enlisting an accountability partner to keep you committed and schedule your tasks and habits in a calendar.
Have a tracking process for your goals, sub-goals, and habits. Tracking keeps you motivated and allows you to course correct along the way.
If goal setting hasn’t worked out for you in the past, you probably missed one of these 3 core elements.?
If you haven't felt satisfied with your goals achieved, it's time to set dreams again.
Are you ready to plan out your year to get closer to your dreams and feel happy and successful? Click here to join me in this FREE live New Year Career Planning Workshop.
To start, set at least one hour to do your goal setting exercise. To get you started I’ve made?a downloadable one pager PDF with prompts you can get here.