Last week, we looked at how you can kick off a plan for the New Year with a review of last year. Once you’ve done that, you can move on to setting meaningful goals for the new year – which is what we’re looking at in this post. We’re going to use the same framework that we used to review last year, the 5Ls model. Just as you used your results from the success audit to assess where you’ve got to in the past year, you can use the gaps you identified in the audit to plan for a different result next year.
Setting meaningful goals
Start with jotting down your ideas for what you want in each of these areas next year. You don’t need specific goals at this stage, it’s more about keywords and themes.
1. LIVE: Wellness and Wellbeing
2. LOVE: Relationships & Romance
3. LEARN: Development & Growth
4. LEAD: Career & Impact
5. LAUGH: Fun & Spontaneity
Once you’ve got these first ideas, you can dig a bit deeper in each of the five areas and try to make your ideas more concrete: What goals might you want to set in each area? Is it a recurring action you want to take e.g. every week or every month? Or is there a specific deadline by when you want to have achieved a particular goal?
Some examples:
1. LIVE: Wellness and Wellbeing
15 minutes of HIIT x 5 days / week
Green smoothie every morning for breakfast
Keep a big bottle of water at my desk and fill it up at least twice a day
Walk to the station every morning instead of taking the bus
Turn my phone off for 24 hours every Sunday
2. LOVE: Relationships & Romance
Call my mum once a week
Plan a brunch with friends one Sunday a month
Join team drinks next time instead of skipping them
Write a list of all my limiting beliefs and reframe them as new positive beliefs
Book a consultation call with a relationship coach
3. LEARN: Development & Growth
Listen to podcasts on the way to and from the office
Read 10 books in 2018
Use the free Duolingo app once a day to practise my Spanish
Find and sign up to one major course or programme in 2018
Find a coach or mentor who’s a few steps ahead of where I want to get to
4. LEAD: Career & Impact
Put aside an additional £500 every month to create a safety buffer
Develop my business proposition and branding by June 2018
Start my blog and publish a post a week as of February 2018
Set up a profile on three freelancing sites and get my first paying client by March 2018
Hand in my resignation so that I can quit after my notice period by 31st December 2018
5. LAUGH: Fun & Spontaneity
Keep Sundays free for random spontaneity!
Block Saturday evenings for date night
Learn to juggle
Say ‘yes’ the next time someone suggests something a bit out there
Make sure that I leave the office latest by 6pm every day and 5pm on Fridays
Goals that are truly meaningful
Most importantly, for each of your goals in each area, you’ll want to write down why each of these goals is meaningful to you: How will your life be different when you achieve it? What will change when you succeed? Why are you so committed to this particular goal?
Identifying a New Year’s theme
Finally, as you look over the different goals that you’ve set, is there an overarching feeling or theme that becomes clear for you? Is there an overall direction that can set the tone for next year?
The advantage of setting a theme for the New Year is that it’s sufficiently specific to guide your choices throughout the year while being sufficiently broad to allow some flexibility.
I like to use quite an organic process to come with a theme, and just see what feels right. If you’re getting a bit stuck, you can try mind-mapping to get your different goals and ideas onto a piece of paper and see if you can find any patterns or feelings that emerge from this.
If you’d like help with setting meaningful goals for the new year, book a call to discuss how we can work together.
