Ok, were you one of many millions making New Year’s Eve resolutions at midnight. Did you know that over 80% of resolutions fail? How depressing is that:-(
How can you make sure that you are the 20% that achieves goals that you set? Here are some tips.
Bruce Li once famously said that a goal is not to be reached but something to aim for. Often when we set a goal the picture, we have in our mind is of us achieving it… the high gives, the award etc. What we need to focus on is the journey we will need to take to actually achieve the goal. You don’t win or achieve you goals by watching the scoreboard, any footballer will tell you that. You win by knowing exactly what you need to do and then having the grit and determination to do it.
A goal without a plan is just a wish - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry… truer words have never been spoken. Many of you know that every year I write my goals, print them and put them on the shower wall. These are not just words on a piece of paper I look at every day that magically come true.
I know exactly what actions I will need to take achieve each of these goals, who I will need to connect with, and I put people around me who will keep me accountable. Just as we write a business plan to ensure that we keep the business on track, so should you write a personal life plan to ensure that you get the most out of the next 12 months.
“If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.” Tom Peters
Understand that opportunities will come your way over the next 12 months that you are currently not aware of. Be open to these and flexible enough to pivot quickly as this is where the key to your success lies. No plan is ever achieved in a straight line as such, think of it as a game of snakes and ladders, climb the ladder, enjoy the view, when the snake gets you, find another ladder to climb.
It is important to note here that I see the snakes as the things that have gone wrong or got in the way. When I start to think about what I want to achieve over the next 12 months, I also think about what could go wrong and how I can overcome these obstacles.
We can talk as much as we like about our new year resolutions but taking action is what will create results. My partner is a surfer and he spends countless hours watching surfing videos on how to catch that perfect wave and ride it for as long as you can. The reality is that it isn’t until he is out in the water on that wave taking the actions, he has planned from watching the videos that he will see and experience the results.
Whatever it is that you write down that you want to achieve in the next 12 months, make sure there is passion and love around it. Yes… passion and love….. you need to want to achieve these goals more than anything else so that when everything goes to shit, and it will, and you have to dig deep to get through the tough times, you have enough passion and love for you goals that you will get through it.
The reason why I put my goals on my shower wall is so that I not only see them every day but I connect with them, I fall in love with them and when I tick them off at the end of year, it is with much celebration and joy.
What about the ones you don’t achieve… well often it’s because I didn’t have the time, skill, knowledge or people or something else came along. If I showed you the last 10+ years of my written goals, you will see that I have achieved almost all of them, so be kind to yourself on this, the goals not achieved may not be for now, they may be for another time.
Your goals need to be achievable, don’t write things that you know are going to be hard and almost impossible. That is setting yourself up for failure. In the beginning Julia and I would write pages of goals, then at the end of the year we would look at the ones we hadn’t achieved, and the reality was that we were never going to.
Don’t hold a gun to your head, make sure that what you write down are things that you need to do, change, shift that are possible with the right amount of energy and focus.
And remember, goals are short and long term, you don’t have to achieve everything in the next 12 months, you need to be flexible, agile adaptable, you need to love or fall in love with what you have written and celebrate the wins.