Goal Making Time!
December, for me, means setting up my new planner (planner addict), deep cleaning my house and setting my goals for the new year. It’s goal making time! I’ve been setting goals for the past 12 years and it has truly made a difference in my productivity, my growth and being able to essentially give myself a report card of where I am and what I’ve gotten accomplished.
My method of goal setting has evolved over the years through finding new resources and introducing new elements into my goal setting. For the past six years or so I’ve done a closing ceremony and said good-bye to each year, writing down the things I’m leaving behind and the things I’m taking with me. Sometimes it’s habits and sometimes it’s people, it’s different every year. I reflect back on things that have happened during the year that impacted me and made me feel strong, caused me pain or joy and moments that altered my path.
Thinking about these things and writing them down gives me a chance to fully process those events and moments and find the good, the lesson in each thing whether it be good or bad. T.D. Jakes said, “the blessing is in the breaking”, so I look for the blessing in even some of the hardest times and what I’ve learned.
I’ve also introduced selecting a word of the year. A single word that describes my intention for the year. A word that for me is an actionable word, something I can add on to the beginning of each goal. It helps me stay focused and becomes part of my mantra for the year.
Goal Setting Workbooks
For the past four years I’ve used a workbook on Life Coach Kimberly Job’s blog Sublime Reflection. The workbook is called Design Your Destiny and incorporates all of the elements I need to set my goals and intentions for each year. It has sections to close out the current year, to walk through what areas of your life you want to see most improved, developing your goals, picking your word of the year and helping to create a morning and evening routine. Unfortunately this workbook is no longer available but she is still available for coaching.
Another resource I’ve used is Leonie Dawson’s Goal Getter Workbooks for Life and Business. They are beautiful spiral bound notebooks with fancy paper (I love fancy paper) and take you through a series of worksheets to help you create your goals around money, relationships, your business, health and more. She has two versions, one for your Life and one for your Business. These are especially great if you’re a solopreneur or entrepreneur. Leonie sells these at one time of the year and that’s now! You can get yours here.
Why Goals are Important
So why am I even talking about this? Because setting goals, going through the process has changed my life and helped me focus. I’m a master procrastinator, I have zero patience and way too many things to do. Setting goals for me is like a cowboy herding his cattle into the pen, I have to heard all my thoughts, ideas and dreams together and sort them out to make sense to me and give me a roadmap to being more effective, motivated and productive.
But please don’t think you can only do this in December, I go through this process sometimes several times a year depending on where I’m at, how my current goals are going and where I may need to pivot. Every single day is a new beginning, a new start another opportunity to make a significant difference in your life or someone elses. You don’t need to wait for Mondays and January 1st to do those things. It can literally happen every time you open your eyes.
Success and Goal Making
The most successful people in the world create goals or objectives but the key to all of this is to follow through, hence why they are so successful. You have to take those goals and break them down to action items you can do in a month, then a week, then daily and DO IT. You would be amazed at how much you can achieve by giving yourself time each day to work towards accomplishing your goals.
Make it snack sized, manageable bites that you can do each day. If you are trying to change or eliminate a habit, write a book, lose weight, start a business, take each one of those things and break them down to a cellular level that feels manageable.
This is YOUR life. You can literally do anything and the only thing that can stand in the way of that is YOU. Decide to make a significant change for the good of you and the people in your circle, surround yourself with people that have already achieved what you are aiming to do, turn your self talk from, “I can’t” to “I am”.
