Wow! It’s New Year’s Eve! How did that come around so quickly? It’s a time for celebration and partying, a time for remembering and reflection and of course, a time for planning what 2016 will have in store for you! That’s just so exciting!
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.
― Edith Lovejoy Pierce
Oh yes, open the book and stare at the blank pages in anticipation of all the excitement that’s to come! I’ve just had the most memorable and amazing year, which wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t written my goals down.
I’m not going to try to fool you and say that it was all sunshine and rainbows, we all have our challenges, but amongst those challenges has been the most wonderful 2015!
I sat on the train a couple of days ago on the way home from the 12th City Visit (in, more-or-less 12 months) and looked at all the photos I’d taken in 2015. I felt amazing as I looked at the recording of my life through the 12 months of 2015. Another goal completed…and I felt amazing!
The truth is that if I hadn’t actually gone to the ‘trouble’ of making written goals and then going public with my intentions, they would never have been achieved. I would have started strong and visited a few cities, read some books and remembered some birthdays, but then, as is often the case, life would have gotten in the way.
Well, actually, life did get in the way, on more than one occasion, but, the intention to complete my goals was strong and so, I kept going, in spite of the things that tried to distract me before I achieved success.
I’ll post a full review of all my goals in a few days, but let’s say it here and now: success has given me something special, from happy memories and personal growth to belief in myself that I can do what I set out to do!
And so we find ourselves back in that place again, facing the blank pages of 2016 and all the opportunities that are there for the making. Are you ready? Will you be making 2016 a year to remember, full of positive life events?
Or, are you on the cusp of 2016 not really sure what it is you want out of your life for the next 12 months? It can be downright difficult to plan just a month ahead, so it follows that planning for an entire 12 months can be completely overwhelming.
We might well have some lofty ideas of things to have, do and be, but we may lack confidence that we can pull it off…but so what? They’re our goals, we can downgrade, upgrade or drop a goal as and when we please and as circumstances change. There’s no shame in that. I changed my 12 Cities goal from 12 months to 14 months to get it completed, but I don’t see anyone complaining!
So you see, setting goals isn’t about setting everything in stone, but it is about giving your life a little more direction for the next 12 months. It kind of helps, when life knocks you around a little, to be able to pick up where you left off once the seas have settled again.
I’ve yet to fully decide on my goals for 2016, but I’ve already got a few ideas bubbling around my head, but of course, I need to get them out of my head and onto one of those blank pages. If you’re also at a point of wanting to set some goals, here’s what I’ll be doing to get my goal-setting exercise for 2016 out of my head and into the ‘here-and-now’. Hopefully it will help you too!
It’s important to consider two things when you’re setting your goals:
- Balance – you don’t want to be doing things that make you feel stressed because they inadvertently unbalance your life;
- Harmony – it helps if your goals are complementary, rather than incompatible, or, at the very least, you acknowledge that with incompatible goals, there may be limited success in both areas or one will probably win out over the other. Where the latter happens, this would probably indicate that one goal was more important to you than the other. This was a lesson I learned in 2015!
Using a ‘Wheel of Life’ template, I’ll be scoring myself in each area of my life. This process forms the basis for setting my goals, because it gives me a strong visual indication of how my life looks now, where the real gaps and challenges are and those areas which will only need ‘maintenance’ as the year unfolds. This maintenance mode is very important however, as I don’t want areas of my life to slide backwards as I push forward in other areas.
The areas I’ll be concentrating on this year will likely be: Contribution, Finances, Personal Growth, Relationships, Business, Fun & Adventure and Health & Fitness but for your own Wheel, choose areas that are important to you and label the spokes accordingly. To be useful and meaningful this must be a personal exercise, so don’t worry about what anyone else thinks you should be doing!
Now the interesting part – score yourself in each of these areas out of 10 (high score). Don’t spend too much time on this, just go with your gut feeling and put a dot at the point that correlates with your feelings. Then, just join the dots!
Do you find the results interesting? I always do! I’m usually quite taken aback by how uneven the ‘circle’ is! This is the biggest clue about where the most effort will be needed to get my life back into harmony!
Next, I’ll pick three key areas for the year ahead where I really want to make a difference, these are usually obvious as they’ll have low scores. These are areas where I want to see changes in my life. I’ll be asking myself questions like:
• What would I like to do in this area?
• What would I like to accomplish in this area?
• What could I do differently this year?
• What are the small things/changes I could make to move myself further up the spoke?
• What would be a real ‘wow’, that if I achieved it (or even some of it), I would be ecstatic?
When you do this part of the exercise, let your mind really wander. Dig deep and don’t put restrictions on what can and can’t be achieved. Just let your mind do its thing and feel the happiness and excitement as all the possibilities well up inside you. This really is good fun!
Once that’s done, walk away for a bit. Go make a drink or walk around the block. You’ll find that your mind will continue to buzz with ideas. It’ll also start to sort the good from the not-so-good. After about 20 minutes or so, go back to your work. Now it’s time to start sorting the ideas so that they can be shaped into goals.
If you have a lot of ideas, try grouping them. Look for themes that are running through your ideas. Is there an overwhelming feeling/thing that needs addressing in order to make 2016 meaningful for you? Go with this!
For each of the three areas, choose one major thing that you would like to do/achieve. These will be your key goals. If you feel that you would like some ‘supporting goals’ in these areas, then write these down too. Are you satisfied with what you have so far? If not, go back to your ideas and re-sift, find the key theme and work this into a goal. Once you’re happy, it’s time to move on to the other spokes of the Wheel.
As I mentioned at the beginning, it’s important to keep a balance when working on our goals. It’s great to have big goals and look forward to a big life in 2016, but you don’t want to work to the exclusion and therefore detriment of other areas of your life.
So now, take a look at the other areas of your life and decide what may need a goal or two (repeat the process above) and what can be kept in ‘maintenance mode’, in other words, keep doing what already works!
It’s also useful to look out for goals that are complementary so that you can achieve more without much extra effort. For example, if you have a savings goal, you might also want to cut down on waste and recycle more things (‘Contribution’ spoke), or, you might want to do more craft projects (‘Hobbies’ / ‘Me Time’ spoke). These could double as gifts and therefore contribute to your savings goal. Similarly, a fitness goal could save on travel expenses if you walk or cycle instead of driving.
Finally, write all your goals down, on one sheet of paper and read them through. How will your life look on 31st December 2016 when you’ve achieved all your plans? Do you feel excited? Are you raring to get going? Great! You now have a set of goals that’s worth the effort to be expended, go for it! If not, tweak and tweak again until you feel excited and motivated!
What is your big project in the New Year? You don’t have one? No dream, no reality! Get a big dream for yourself now to get a big reality tomorrow!
― Mehmet Murat ildan
I wish you every success with your 2016 goals and hope this little practical exercise will help get you started. Your time is NOW! Go make 2016 amazing!