How to Make 2024 the Best Year Yet

Welcome to this week's edition of The Weekly Trail Report, where we share,

1 Story, where real stories of architects and engineers meet tailored financial strategies,

1 Actionable Tip, to provide actionable insights and guide you towards financial success,

1 Financial Term, to demystify key concepts and empower your decisions.

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1. Story: Annual Goal Setting

Happy New Year!

Last week I shared our Annual Review process, which if you didn’t get a chance to read, would be a great primer before reading this edition.?

This week I am going to share my wife and I’s process for setting (and holding to) our annual goals. We always perform the Annual Review and then the Goal Setting in one sitting, as they are really best done together.

If you don’t enjoy these review and goal setting sessions, then most likely you aren’t making much forward progress. If that’s the case you really should embrace them because that is how you are going to get out of that cycle.?

It might be painful to think about the progress you are not making, but facing that is the only way to move through it. By taking some time to reflect you might realize that there are some easy solutions that wouldn’t be hard to start implementing. You can also make this as simple or as complex as you like (don’t get bogged down by trying to do much).

Here is our 3 step process:

1. Theme

The first place we always begin is with a theme or intention for the year ahead. Usually this is a word that fits into the phrase:

“The Year of ________”

A few notable themes I’ve had over the years:

1. 2018: The Year of Love and BusinessI met my wife and started my first business
2. 2022: The Year of FunIn fact, a very fun year

1. 2023: The Year of AccomplishmentMy first full year in business with OBPF and the year my wife and I bought our dream property

It could be a coincidence… but I don’t think so.?

2. Clarifying Sentence

Once we have our theme, we like to expand on it by writing an?

“At the end of the year, I want to ________” sentence.?

So, at the end of the year, what do you want to feel/have/know/be?

For The Year of Fun, my sentence was “At the end of the year I want to be fired up about where we are and where we are going.”

For the Year of Accomplishment, my wife’s sentence was “At the end of the year I want to come into our annual review and feel good about the past year and not like I need to change a bunch of things.”

So, take what your theme means for you, and put that into a sentence.?

3. Actionable Steps

The final step is determining what are the small (maybe daily or weekly) actionable things you can do on a consistent basis that will help you to reach your sentence, which is really your vision for the year.

The ultimate idea is to break down your big vision or theme for the year into smaller bite-sized pieces that over time bring you closer and closer to the vision for the year.?

Here are some of the small actionable goals we set for The Year of Fun:

• Have one thing to look forward to each month
• Do something new for the first time each quarter
• Practice gratitude daily
• Go surfing again

Categories

To help with this process, my wife and I will review and set individual goals for the different areas of our life:

• Health
• Spiritual
• Financial
• Relationships
• Work/Business

If you try to set one or multiple goals for each of those areas, it can really begin to add up.?

Be conscious of not over-committing yourself.?

We made that mistake in 2021.?

We had 9 different goal categories with 1-3 goals each.?

Needless to say, we did not hit nor remember all of the goals we set.

Don’t forget about your goals

Part of the reason we didn’t remember our goals that year was because we set too many. But we also didn’t revisit the goals until the end of the year. This was a mistake and we didn’t make nearly as much progress as we had hoped.

Not an uncommon problem.?

So now we make sure to do quarterly check-ins.?

Each quarter, usually on a Sunday, we sit down together and review the goals we set for the year and assess our progress towards each one.?

It’s a helpful check-point to remind ourselves of what we set out to do, and then make any adjustments to our routine as necessary so that we remain on-track.

Good luck out there and here’s to making 2024 the best year yet!

2. Actionable Tip: Set Regular Check-Ins

Often the reason people shy away from setting annual goals is because they have a history or track record with not achieving those goals.?

Honestly, a lot can happen in a year, so it can be really pretty easy to get distracted with life and accidentally halt progress on your goals.?

Setting regular (quarterly or monthly) check-ins on your goals ensures that there are pre-determined check-points throughout the year for you to review your goals and assess your current progress.

The trick is to schedule those now, when you first set the goals. That way they are already on your calendar and all you have to do is show up.

Anything you can do to reduce the need to “think” about something, will make it easier for you to follow through on it.

3. Financial Term: SMART Goals

SMART goals is a mnemonic acronym first used by George T. Doran in the November 1981 issue of Management Review magazine to help set better goals.?

It provides a framework for how to define your goals so that they are more effective.

S - Specific: Well-defined goals are easier to pursue than vague ones.

M - Measurable: A goal that cannot be measured is hard to track progress for, and hard to know once it’s been accomplished.

?

A - Achievable: Goals should help push you, but ensure that what you set is within the realm of possibility so you don’t shut yourself down.

R - Relevant: Align your goals with your overall vision for your life.

T - Time-Based: Give yourself a timeline for achieving your goal to ensure you continue to make progress.

Happy Trails,

Ryan

Disclaimer: We employ fictional characters to illustrate financial concepts faced by individuals in the architecture and engineering industry. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental. While the stories are inspired by our experiences, the specific details, circumstances, and outcomes mentioned are entirely fictional and created for educational purposes only. Real client information is strictly confidential and never disclosed without explicit consent. Our aim is to provide relatable examples for educational purposes, respecting the privacy and confidentiality of our clients.