Rockstar Goal Setting

As we? start to look forward towards to 2022, we often think about New Year's resolutions or goals we would like to achieve for the coming year. This is a process I have conducted for over 15 years and year on year I have learned tips and tricks to get better at it.

There are five things you should try this year if you want to smash your goals in 2022.

Tip 1

Work to a plan. By this, I mean have some structure to how you're going to set your goals and in which area of your life they're going to be. I personally use the following headings to expand my thinking across my whole life.

Physical, they say health is wealth. Have some physical goals for yourself in the next year, whether that be running a 10k or getting to a certain body weight or starting Yoga.

Mental, this can be about self-development, reading a good book, attending a course and learning something new, testing and stretching your brain. They say the more you learn, the more you earn. Put this into practice and get learning this year.

Social, dedicate time to your friends and family events. This might be booking tickets to the races or to a concert now that life is starting to open back up again.

Personal, family first (this should have gone at the top really), make sure you're dedicating time to the ones you love and not letting a silly thing like work get in the way. In this section I would include holiday plans for the coming year too.

Community/Environment, what are you doing to give back to your community? How are you helping the environment in which we live in? They say the art of living is giving. Set yourself a target for the next year in this area of your life.

And the last is Financial or Business, Do you have an income goal or an investment plan for the next 12 months? Or do you have business performance goals that you could track and measure across 2022?

Tip 2

Write it all down, and write it all down by hand. Bear with me here. I know we're in the 21st century but to write something down has a profound impact on the way in which you absorb that information. It allows you to brain dump all of your ideas onto a piece of paper and gets them in some sort of order. Often reading back on your first iterations, you might want to change your goals and up the ante a little bit.

Now we need to get these into your pocket.

Tip 3

Use the notes section on your phone to write down all of your goals. Now you have got everything down in order, I want you to try two extra things when doing this.

The first thing I want you to do is to write your goals down as if they have already been achieved. As an example don't write down simply ‘lose weight in 2022’.

Instead, be more specific. Write down the goal as if it's already been completed. ‘I feel so energised by the fact I have lost 14 pounds this year and achieved my weight loss goal.’

Now add pictures to each goal you create. For example, if your goal is to upgrade the car this year, and your goal is to get a new Tesla, for instance, jump onto Google type in the Tesla Model that you want and the colour, now select images. Then copy the image of the car that you want and add it to your goals list on your phone. Each goal item on your list should have a picture, get creative. Really look through Google and get that list full of visuals as this will really help us in the next step.

Tip 4

Visualisation. By completing the steps in point three, you will now have your list of goals, touching each area of your life. You will have written each of your goals in a future tense as if you had already achieved them (this is mentally really powerful). You will have also added a photo to each goal.

Now one of the most effective ways of keeping you on target with your goals is to regularly take time to visualise them. Try and do this in your mind in granular detail. Think about the smell of a new car, the way the leather is going to feel, how you're going to feel walking up to it and unlocking it. The more you can embed the detail of achieving this goal in your mind the more subconsciously you will take steps towards achieving it.

Ideally, now that this is on your phone, you can read each goal back to yourself a few times a week. World-class athletes visualise achieving their goals thousands of times in their minds eye and have done so for years. They report it is so helpful in allowing them to achieve those amazing results in high-pressure moments as they've done it thousands of times already in their mind.?

Tip 5

Start an achievements record on your phone. We all lead busy lives and the lives of a high achiever can be full of fantastic moments all year round. But you will forget some of these great things as they seem little at the time.

Again, jump on to the notes section in your phone and create a new list.

List bullet points of the great things you're doing and enjoying each week. You will be so surprised how much you get in there from simple pleasures, like ‘a wonderful family lunch at a great pub’ to ‘winning newcomer of the year at an industry award ceremony.’

Looking back through this simple list will help you appreciate how far you have come and give you the reminder to celebrate and be grateful of the progress steps on the way to achieving your goals. It's a bit like running your first 5k on your way to reaching your 10k race target.

Having this list will allow you to gain great perspective and appreciation by looking back on what you've already achieved. This will give you time to be grateful and will also provide a bit of accountability and further motivation to keep you going throughout the year. Just like the goals list, I would recommend you look at this each week a couple of times just to keep it up to date and keep you going.

I really do hope that these few tips can help you create a goals list that you will stick to this year and that this is a process you will use to push your life to the next level in 2022 and beyond, best of luck.?