Photo by Ronnie Overgoor on Unsplash
2022 is here: Make it your year!
How to set goals and actually achieve them
INTRODUCTION
2022 is still very young, and many people are going crazy about their new year's resolutions and finally defining goals they'd like to achieve.
"This year, I will quit smoking."
"This will be the year I finally start my business."
…
According to strava, the harsh truth is that people most likely give up on their resolutions on January 19th. That's week 3 of 52.
Some reasons are that people don't have a direction, an execution plan and a vision about their goals. They write it down, are completely hyped during the first days, but then life gets in the way (which is normal), and they forget about it. Furthermore, they are willing to reach that outcome but don't have a plan to act on and don't know explicitly why they want to achieve it.
Sounds familiar? Good. I used to be one of those people three years ago and progressed year after year. There are still many things to improve the process, but I've already built a solid foundation that spikes up the probability of achieving everything.
I'm amazed by this great community here and would like to share the system I crafted for myself to help you out on that.
So please make yourself comfortable, get pen and paper out (or your note-taking app) and enjoy it.
🚀 🚀 🚀 If you stick to the end of this post, you're serious about it. Some pro tips are waiting for you.
THE SYSTEM
There are many systems regarding goal setting, crafting a vision, and acting on it. I tried different systems, adapted the most beneficial parts and made my hybrid version. I like things to be simple and practical.
Feel free to adjust it to your own needs.
My system is split up into two major parts. The first one is to become clear about your goals and set them properly. The second part is about developing an execution plan that makes sure you're on the right track to meet your goal.
🎯 1) Setting your goals
First of all, I recommend splitting your life up into different areas. I use six: career, finances, physical health, mental health, social, and love/family. It's not a must to come up with six, and maybe three work for you. The major part is that you split it up at all.
We're doing this because we'd like to build our life upon multiple pillars and be aware of them. Imagine a table standing on only one leg (for example, finances). Once that leg gets weaker or breaks away, there's nothing left anymore that supports that table, and it collapses. Imagine what happens to your life.
But when some legs are left, the table (your life) is still up. I'm also a strong believer that a fulfilled life is about building a strong leg in each area of your life.
Becoming aware of each area, creating a vision, and checking the status quo is essential before setting any goal. That sets the foundation of it all. So skipping this part would result in building a skyscraper on sandy ground.
✍🏻 1.1) Define your vision
- go to a place you feel comfortable in (your workspace, a café, …)
- put yourself in a good mood (listen to your favorite music, drink a nice coffee, …)
- get yourself into the state of a child where everything is possible without any limitations (I know that this might seem difficult because we quickly start to overthink things, but try to see life through the eyes of a child where limitations aren't present)
- fun fact: the reality is that there aren't limitations in the "real" life either
- take out pen and paper (I know I'm oldschool 😁)
- on each site write two life areas as a heading (one at the top and one in the middle)
- come up with at least five things you'd like to pull into your life for each area
- if the task above is too difficult for you write at least five things down you DON'T want to have in that specific life area anymore (don't want to live from paycheck to paycheck anymore, can't stand to be 20kg overweight, …)
- now you can transform the things you don't like into a goal
- read your list again and highlight the top three in each area
- read once again and pick your MAJOR GOAL
- write your why under each major goal (can be many reasons)
You should have one goal in each area of your life with the individual reason(s). It doesn't matter yet if it's reachable in one year or twenty years. The next step is to form a smaller goal that can be achieved in a year.
🔨 1.2) Define your yearly goals
We like to use a similar concept when programming — splitting a big problem into many smaller ones. That's what we're doing here as well.
In this stage, there isn't a step-by-step plan like above. It's really in your hands because you know better what seems achievable for you in a year. If not, this is not bad because it's a good try to find out what you're capable of. At the end of this year, where you review your progress, you're much more aware of what you can achieve in a year.
So, pick a size that feels good to you. It shouldn't be too boring and too oversized. Ideally, it's right between them. There's a pro tip at the end of this post where we look at that topic once again.
To make it a little more practical, here are some quick examples:
Vision --> "I want to build up 15kg of muscle mass."
The goal for this year --> "Building 5kg muscle mass."
Why --> "I want to look better and feel healthier."
Vision --> "I'd like to become a data scientist."
The goal for this year --> "Learning python and the basics of data science."
Why --> "I want to switch careers to earn more money and support my family better than know."
We will break it down later when we define our actions into monthly, weekly and daily…
💪🏻 2) Define your actions
Before we start to define our execution system, let's take a look at the major difference between a goal and a system.
A goal is useful to set a direction. Imagine you're about to visit a friend who's living in another town. Your goal is his destination. So with that in mind, you know exactly WHERE you're heading. But you don't know HOW yet.
A system comes into play that ensures you take all the necessary steps to reach that goal. A system is useful for actually making progress. In our example, this would be the vehicle you choose (bus, train, aeroplane, car, bike, …) and the exact route you'll choose to reach your friend's place.
So they both need each other because having a goal helps you what system to put in place.
🏃🏻♂️ 2.1) Create an execution system
For now, we've defined our one major goal in each life area for the upcoming year. Now it's time to break each into quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily actions. This can be not easy because you don't see the detailed actions that span a quarter or even a month. That's normal, and that's okay.
But defining the actions for the current week and the daily tasks is manageable. The key is to focus on actionable steps you can control and not on the event.
I highly encourage you to use a journal or a proper task planner of your choice if you aren't already using one.
Let's take a look at an example:
Yearly goal --> "Reaching 20,000 followers on Instagram" (not really in my control)
Daily Actions --> "Posting five times a week" (in my control to increase the probability of reaching that goal)
❗️ 2.2) Important hints to get the best out of your actions
Let's check what we've already got:
one major goal for each life area for this year
quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily actions (ideally)
But that's still a little bit vague. So here are three important hints to go deeper:
Define three milestones for your yearly goal
breaks the goal even more down into three smaller ones
the goal doesn't seem so huge anymore
gives you satisfaction along the way
this can also help you to define quarterly and monthly goals
Be specific about your system/habits (My personal favourite ❤️)
research has shown that you're 2x or 3x more likely to stick to your actions if you make them specific
“I will train on [DAY1], [DAY2] and [DAY3] at [TIME] at/in [PLACE]”
I highly encourage you to read Atomic Habits by James Clear to go deeper with it (if you've already read it, read it again 💪🏻)
Become aware of sacrifice(s) you're willing to pay
taking risks or sacrifices is part of reaching every goal
so it's really helpful to ask yourself, "what kind of sacrifice, pain or discomfort am I willing to accept?"
with every great achievement comes boring training, ugly situations, hard lessons and sacrifices
PRO TIPS
Wow. That was a fun ride until now, right? Reaching that point of the post shows you're serious about your goals. To me, that's the most important foundation because YOU choose what YOU want to change. Being aware of what to change is the driving force.
To reinforce everything we've done so far, here are some 🚀advanced tips:🚀
👀 1) Focus on One goal at a time
There's something called goal competition. This means that the different goals you've set are competing for your time and attention. When you chase a new goal, you have to pull focus and energy from other goals.
It's similar to chasing rabbits. If you're chasing multiple rabbits simultaneously, you'll most likely end up catching none of them.
The key here is to choose one goal at a time and become ruthless about cutting the others down for that period. It's essential to invest your energy and focus into one goal instead of four simultaneously.
Hopping between them daily will make you feel confused, and you'll become stressed out because you'll achieve nothing. I've been there, too.
It's not about thinking bigger; it's more about deciding what goal to focus on for 100%
☝🏻 2) Setting upper boundaries
When we develop a new goal, we usually define a lower boundary. This sets the tone for what we want to achieve at a very minimum.
For example
"I want to lose at least 5kg of body weight."
"I want to code every day for at least one hour".
But this could lead to a problem of stressing yourself out and not knowing when and where to stop. If you want to code at least one hour a day, what is your upper boundary for that? Having no upper boundary can be very unsustainable in the long run.
Defining an upper boundary also makes it easier for you to show up on your actions, which is crucial because you know the frame of your action. Open-ended actions are history.
Our examples from above could look like this with a proper upper boundary:
"I want to lose at least 5kg bodyweight, but not more than 8kg."
"I want to code every day for at least one hour and two hours at maximum."
There's a magical zone of long-term growth that is right in the middle between your lower and your upper boundary. Your lower limit regulates that the goal is exciting enough to start, and the upper limit sets the boundary to make progress.
📈 3) Measure your progress
Our human mind loves feedback, and we are satisfied by the evidence of making progress. I always say, "feeling productive is one of many ways that lead to happiness".
You can only improve the things you measure. Tracking your actions helps you understand if you're spending the right time on them and find a way to optimize them.
I'm using a bullet journal and defining a whole page for each month where I write down what habits/actions I like to track and each day for that month. Those are primarily the habits that ensure I'm about to achieve my goals. Once I've performed this habit, I'll check it off for that day. It also gives me a greater view of my overall performance for that month and helps me to make adjustments along the way.
Furthermore, it's a great reward for me to check something off. Remember What's rewarded gets repeated
Here are some other great inspirations for measuring your progress:
You receive honest feedback if you're on a good way to reach your goal or not. You can also immediately make adjustments because you're constantly aware of your progress.
👓 4) Keep your goals visible
Usually, life kicks in during your pursuit, and the goals become blurred. Your motivation begins to decrease, and you're more likely to forget about what you want to achieve this year. I also experienced that.
The crucial part is you see your goals every day. You can hang them on your wall, write them on your whiteboard, use them as your desktop background, or make it a daily habit to read or write them down. Whatever works for you.
Important to note here is also to make your WHY visible to you.
It also helps spike your motivation again and see your greater vision every day.
I have written them down in my bullet journal, and I'm reading them every day and trying to feel that emotion when I've reached them.
When you interact with your goals and the reasons behind them daily, you constantly remind yourself what you are pursuing and why.
FINAL WORDS
I know that this can seem overwhelming at first glance. Nothing here is set in stone. My intention is not to give you a step-by-step plan you have to follow blindly. I think it's very important - especially in today's world - to think for yourself.
As famous Bruce Lee said:
Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.
I tried to give you some guidance and inspiration for making this year your best.
Be focused but not too hard when things don't turn out the way you wanted. It's always important learning, and you know what to improve on your next try. Learning made is always better than taking no action.
The same goes for having bad days where you're not performing at a high level. Everyone has to go through them. Tomorrow the cards will be reshuffled, and you have a fresh opportunity to make it better than today.
That's what separates high achievers from mediocre people. They show up every day again, no matter how hard or draining yesterday was. Another great benefit is getting used to setbacks that are normal in life. After some time, you recognize that they aren't a big deal-breaker anymore.
It's important to do things constantly instead of doing them perfectly. Perfectionism is an illusion that drains your focus and energy. You can get very close to it, but you'll never reach it for 100% because you'll always find something you can make better.
Don't underestimate what you can achieve in a year, and don't overestimate what you can achieve in a day.
I wish you all an extraordinary year!
I'm looking forward to reading about your goals in the comments below👇🏻. I'm also always open to questions and feedback.
Sources: