Setting Powerful Goals For 2023: a Small Shift that Changes Everything - for Yourself and Your Company

Here it comes again. That moment of the year which most of us are preparing for the new.

Personally, I am not used to doing big celebrations for New Year's. I am not a big fan myself of putting the hope for results in the never-coming tomorrow.

But I am a big fan of rituals. And this is what I am about to put some light on.

The Power of Rituals

Celebrations and rituals, aren't the same? You may ask. In fact, no, they aren't.

You can celebrate an event, a person, a moment, an achievement, or whatever you feel like. Celebrations are great for honoring our efforts, I celebrate all-the-time. But the one thing about celebrating holidays that bothers me is that we've been doing it for so long time in our society that we lack awareness.

And this is what sets apart celebrations from rituals. Because rituals are made with intention. And putting intention in our life is powerful. Intention requires full awareness.

Intentions

Intentions are not wishes. You may wish something with your mind but lack with your heart. It is not rare to wish for things that are completely disconnected from who we are.

Intention requires energy. From our mind and soul. Intention requires feelings, requires a consequence, an impact, even when we are settling intentions that seem to benefit just ourselves it feels actually that it is for something bigger than us.

A Reflection on How We Can Set Powerful Goals This Year: With Intention.

If you are like me, you probably already wrote down your goals for the next year as soon 1st of December became the cover page of the calendar. So, this is an opportunity for you to review the goals you already set and make them more powerful.

If you are busy, caught up in the confusion and chaos the last month of the year usually becomes in your company, keep this in mind for when you take the time to sit with yourself.

Prepare with awareness

Take some time for yourself. This is a meeting between your past self, your future self, and your current self.

I make no distinction between setting goals for ourselves personally and setting goals in a company. Think business as one. An organization is one organism. The same way we humans are made by millions of cells and small particles. Your company is made by every person that is necessary for its existence and operation.

Intention requires to activate the energy of every cell in our body. In the same way, it requires the energy of every person in your company. Start with your leadership board. With the decision makes. Take time for yourselves. Prepare. Instead of making one more meeting of the thousands that happen in the year, create a ritual.

Preparation starts with intention. It starts with communicating how people - in state of mind and body - should come for this gathering. With intention and attention.

Review and collect Intuitive information

Review the year. Attention: Goals aren't black and white. If you are going to review the year just by checking boxes you will lose so much valuable information. There are types of information that we gather that are intuitive, they come from experience, they come from walking the path we have been through. And we can only that ownership of this information to use it intentionally if we track back our steps and notice what changed, how did it feel and why.

The way I find it most effective is to write down or record voice notes to yourself about how was the year in your perspective, describe how it evolved and most important the meaning of each stage, event, or moment for you, what is its role in the bigger picture. Looking back and exploring how it was the journey of pursuing to achieve the goals settled for this year gives you a good in-depth perspective of where you are right now and to which direction you actually need to point to next.

If you are setting goals for your company, I highly recommend asking your decision makers to make this exercise in advance and bring it to the gathering, so you can discuss the different perspectives that will show up and collect all the intuitive information that different people bring. By putting a light on this it will feel like identifying a new superpower you didn't know your brand has and channeling it to the next year and goals.

The goal is not what matters the most but the journey that it takes us on. That's why setting goals is something so special and powerful, we are choosing consciously the journeys we are about to embark on! How exciting is that?!

The beauty of goals and what there is next

Now that you are aware of the journey that your last goals took you on, ask yourself if this is a path that you are likely to keep pursuing. Is there a next level to which we can upgrade this journey?

Think of goals as a north start but concentrate on the actions that will be required from you to go in that direction. Are you available and open to surrendering to it? Even if it is uncomfortable? Even if it will require a new version of yourself? Or a new version of your company?

Isn't it beautiful? Underneath our goals there is an urge to keep transforming ourselves, to keep transforming our creations, making them better, every time. When we set goals we are putting ourselves on a journey of transformation to define who we choose to be.

Why goals fail

Because to transform we have to let go of parts of us that are familiar to us. And if we are not aware of this, if we don't use every cell of our body or our company aware of what will be required from us to become, we get stuck.

A goal that wasn't achieved won't ever mean a failure. There is so much information we collect that makes us more powerful than ever. And oftentimes, when we walk the goals journey with the awareness it requires from us, we will realize that some goals are never to be achieved. Because by trying to get them, we will understand that we will be better without them and this is something we can only know during the process.

A goal that didn't have the support of attitude will die in peace in the field of the familiar and known.

The shift: define an attitude.

To set powerful goals this year with the intention to support them by defining guidelines for attitude. It helps to focus on the journey rather than on the outcome.

First, once you have goals defined, group them by category. If you are doing it for yourself this could look like: Well-being, work, family, finances, spirituality, etc. If you are doing it in your company break down the brand and business goals into areas of expertise: Product development, marketing, team happiness, etc.

Then base each group on an attitude that you believe is more likely to help you achieve those goals. You can't control what it will show up in the journey towards the goal but you can define how it will be your attitude towards whatever it comes.

Here is an example:

Personal Goals

• Group: Finances - Investments. Attitude: Slow and steady.
• Group: Well-being. Attitude: Prioritize being good to me so I can be good to others.

Company Goals

(Ideally, the attitude must be connected with your brand vision, values, and philosophy then it becomes an opportunity to strengthen culture)

• Group: Marketing. Attitude: Be helpful.
• Group: Product development. Attitude: Make it easy.

Very thoughtful note for companies and yourself: an attitude is something you must commit to. It becomes the filter for how you act and proceed along the way. Making it just beautiful words forgotten in time won't take you anywhere.

The Power of Small Adjustments

Last week I heard for the first time the concept of '1 degree for change' through Meg Pagani while she beautifully shared her most recent work about Power and Purpose.

She shared that for a ship to change completely its direction it is just required a 1° angle of adjustment of the rudder. This is the power of making small adjustments with intention.

I hope that this year you will set goals differently, with more intention and clear attitude, so they become powerful so as you.

Make it a ritual. Not a routine. Settle with intention, commit to the transformation. Trust the process. Act.

Any thoughts on that? Share with me on the comments :)