Everywhere you look right now someone is talking about making resolutions for the New Year or setting goals. There’s a good reason for it. These articles, this one included, aren’t just obligatory January fodder. There is wisdom in the practice of goal setting.
Success isn’t something we stumble upon. It begins by identifying what we want to achieve. It requires us to make a plan on how we’re going to achieve it. It includes milestones and checkpoints to help us track progress or make adjustments. In other words, successful people set goals and make a plan to achieve them.
When we were young, someone taught us how to safely cross the street by pausing at the edge of the walkway to look to our left and to our right. We learned that this pause and multi-point gaze ensure we can safely make our way from Point A to Point B. It’s a moment to assess our environment and make a plan. Setting goals should take the same approach.
As important as it is to look forward and identify where you’re headed, you also need to carve out time to look where you’ve been. Take that time now, before you leap into a new set of goals and targets, to assess progress on your previous goals. Carve out the space to truly honor and notice the shifts that occurred in the past year. Identify growth and progress. Recognize unexpected challenges. Acknowledge exposed weaknesses you weren’t previously aware of and might need to address.
Some goals focus on our work. Some goals focus on us. Some are individual goals. Some are for our team or the entire organization. Regardless, all goals should be personal. Yes, you can scroll the vast depths of the internet and amass an endless list of suggested annual targets. Many of those will be suggested over and over, page after page; however, repetition doesn’t mean these particular popular suggestions are the right goals for you or your organization.
Vague goals aren’t good goals. Popularity does not equate necessity. Create the vision and goals that are best suited for you and your teams. Understand your specific needs at this time. Understand your limitations. Define your vision. Identify your core values and your mission. And then set goals that align with those things.
When we don’t, we tend to race around trying to catch all the things – even the things that don’t really propel us forward. We can exhaust ourselves without achieving growth, success, or satisfaction.
Vague goals don’t mean a whole lot. You can’t achieve success without defining what success looks like. Likewise, it’s a lot easier to make progress toward success when you lay out a clear path of milestones. Goal setting, in the form of New Year resolutions or otherwise, requires specificity and a road map on how we’re going to achieve the targets we’re aiming for. Be deliberate as you set out on this path.
As an example, let’s say you set a personal goal of learning to play the guitar this year. That’s a little vague, because let’s be honest, you can learn to strum a few notes or even some chords of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in a short amount of time and call it mission accomplished. Get more specific. Perhaps your goal is to learn to play your mother’s favorite song by her birthday in October. It’s not an easy song so this is going to take a little work. How are you going to achieve this? Will it be a self-taught path using videos and other materials to guide you through the process of learning to strum properly and to pick out the right chords? Will it be lessons you take? How many hours will you practice? What other simpler songs and milestones will you mark along the way?
On the professional front, perhaps you set a goal to grow your business. This is, of course, another vague goal. Year end revenues could wrap at just pennies above this year’s reporting and you’d technically have achieved your goal. It’s not really what you mean when you say grow the business, though, is it? So be specific. “We’re setting a goal to increase revenues by 10% this fiscal year.”
Make a plan to achieve this – what new markets will you explore? How will you invest in marketing to help facilitate sales leads and growth? Will you trim expenses so that each closed deal yields higher returns? How much growth do you need to see each month to ensure you’re on target to reach year-end goals? At what points in the year will you assess progress and make adjustments?
The thing about setting long-term goals is that sometimes life happens and the direction we were headed is no longer the direction we should be heading. It might be a shift in the market that requires your organization to adapt to remain competitive. It may be an injury or other health issue that requires you to change your fitness plans and goals. It may be something good and amazing. It may be a set of challenges or struggles you weren’t anticipating. Whatever it is, it changes your circumstances and alters your course. It happens.
Goals aren’t set in stone. They can be adapted. They can be paused. They can be dismissed. Make it a practice throughout the year to evaluate the course you have set for yourself and whether this is still the right direction for you (or your organization). Make changes that need to be made. Tweak the details that need to be updated. Celebrate the progress you’ve made to date. And then affirm the (amended or otherwise) plan to keep moving forward.
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