Is it just me, or did the first half of this year go by in a blink and also feel like a lifetime? Tomorrow is the first day of Q3 and 2H — a marker of time that invites you to zoom out and look forward, to calibrate expectations, evaluate systems, celebrate progress check-in with existing goals reconstruct and define new ones & set yourself up for success in the back half of the year. It doesn’t matter what goal you set, as long as you’re setting goals. The simple act of setting goals has a transformative impact with ripple effects well beyond the scope of the goal itself. Setting goals
It transforms a loose vision & abstract aspirations into an articulated outcome rooted in a clear Why. Having goals is the difference between feeling around in a dark room for random objects & walking into the room with a headlamp and a pick list. Setting a goal is necessary, but not sufficient. If you want to actually achieve the goal, the way you structure and pursue it matters. In this issue, three actionable strategies to set achievable goals:
Before we dive into the specific strategies, let’s get clear on what NOT to do in general: DON’T be vague about what you’re measuring and how you’re measuring it. DO set specific, measurable goals and track them accurately. DON’T set it and forget it. Do schedule and conduct regular goal reviews. DON’T set too many overlapping goals at once. DO focus on a shortlist and be clear about what you’re prioritizing at any given time. DON’T be overly ambitious in setting your goals. DO be realistic about the time implications and the distractions you’re likely to face. DON’T keep your goals a secret. DO share your goals with an accountability partner. DON’T focus only on what you want. DO think about what you’re willing to sacrifice to get it. DON’T just assume your goal is achievable. DO design systems that help you achieve it. Strategy to Achieve Daily Progress: Top GoalsThe biggest risk to moving a goal forward is the massive pile of other stuff on your mind and on your list. Psychologists refer to this as “goal competition”. Your energy and attention are finite (whether you admit it or not!) It’s a zero sum game. Any effort you put towards Goal A necessarily reduces the amount of energy you have available for Goals B and C. Ruthless and intentional prioritization is key. Warren Buffett’s 25-5 rule comes to mind. He recommends writing down your 25 top priorities, and then crossing out 20 of them because those are the biggest distractions to the 5 you should really be focused on. The same principle applies to your daily goals. If you start your day with a laundry list of things to do, I guarantee that by the end of it you won’t have accomplished everything (that’s not possible) and, more importantly, you won’t have accomplished the things that move your goals forward. We like how it feels to get things done, no matter what the thing is that we’re doing. We get a dopamine hit from the accomplishment, whether it’s a significant task or an insignificant one. In the absence of a prioritized short-list, we typically tackle the tactical minutiae first, since those are the quickest tasks to complete. But then we wonder why we’re constantly doing yet never getting to the things that we really care about. The Top Goals technique solves for this by distilling The List down to the needle movers & having you select and prioritize three goals to tackle every single day. The conscious selection process alone will work wonders, by forcing you to revisit your work-in-process goals & to be intentional about how you spend your time. Beyond that, by tackling your Top Goals first, you’re avoiding the problem of never getting to the work that matters. You’re prioritizing your priorities. Best Practices for Top Goals: 1. Set your Top Goals the day prior. Tee your self up for success by designating your Top Goals the day before. This has a few benefits:
Make the selection of your Top Goals part of your daily transition ritual:
An intentional power down like this at the end of the work day prepares you to be fully present in your next role (in my case, mom) and tees up your future work-self to hit the ground running the next day. Who doesn’t love a win-win?! 2. Focus on the Next Right Actions for your Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly Goals. Top Goals should ladder to a higher-level objective, as the next thing that needs to be done to move a priority goal forward. The actions selected should not fall into the personal admin bucket. If you need to call the insurance company on Monday no matter what (👋), that’s a priority for the day, but it’s an isolated task, not a Top Goal. An admin task like that should be assigned to a Miscellany or Personal Admin time block on your calendar alongside similar tasks. I have a standing 15m block on my calendar every other day for things like this. When the task comes up, I drop it into the description field of the calendar invite for easy tracking. Top Goals are needle-movers, not box-checkers. 3. Start your day with your Top Goals. Block 60-90 minutes as early as possible in your day to tackle your Top Goals first. The sense of accomplishment you get from doing meaningful work right out of the gates will jump start your morale and momentum for the day. Strategy to Make Big Progress with Baby Steps: Mini GoalsThe leading cause of death for goals is not difficulty, lack of competency or excessive ambition, it’s simply failure to show up. We defeat ourselves, through procrastination, fear of failure and self-sabotage. Mini Goals help by breaking down objectives into smaller, more achievable steps, creating opportunities to celebrate and build momentum. The approach is simple. Break down a lofty goal into smaller, more achievable increments, and set each increment as its own individual goal. If your goal is to read one book per month and you’re starting from a baseline of not reading at all, your first mini goal could be to read 5 pages per day and you could work up from there in increments of 10. It may take longer than you hoped to achieve the overarching goal this way, but you’re a lot more likely to actually achieve it than if you stick with the book-a-week version of the goal. The achievable increments are building blocks to the larger goal that
This approach also yields a built-in roadmap. As you achieve each incremental goal, you have a clear understanding of what your next target will be. Best Practices for Mini Goals: 1. Make them SMART. Apply the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) standard to each mini goal so that you’re generating actionable feedback at every step of the process. 2. Set Deadlines. Assign a specific deadline to each mini goal to create productive time pressure and accountability. This prevents you from lingering and stalling out on any particular step. 3. Incorporate Implementation Intentions. Research confirms that you’re more likely to achieve your goals (like 2 to 3 times more likely) if you make a specific plan for when, where and how you will do the thing that gets you to your goal. Utilize these two templates from James Clear to level up your likelihood of success: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]. I will read 5 pages every morning in my sun room. If your goal involves building a new habit, attach it to an established trigger: After/Before [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]. After I make my coffee, I will read 5 pages in my sun room. 4. Adjust as needed. Breaking a goal into incremental steps gives you the opportunity to adjust and calibrate along the way. Use it. The point isn’t rigidity around your original plan. The point is progress. If you need to tweak the approach to make it achievable, no problem. That’s what mini goals are for. Strategy to Make an Abstract Goal Achievable: Backward PlanningBackward Planning is a technique that combines goal setting objectives with project planning processes. Mini Goals build forward towards an objective, while Backward Planning works backward from an objective. The approach and mindset are different but the output is similar: individual building blocks that move you closer and closer toward the goal. With Backward Planning, you break the goal into milestones and the milestones into steps or tasks. Backward Planning process:
Best Practices for Backward Planning: 1. Get granular. Break large steps into smaller steps and those into even smaller steps. Continue this practice until you have a sequenced list representing as much of the process as you are aware of to achieve your goal. As additional steps surface, add them into your process and timeline. The more your plan reflects your reality, the more likely you'll be to stick to it over the long term. 2. Be conservative. Pad your time estimates for unfamiliar steps and try to anticipate possible bottlenecks. While all progress is good progress, psychologically it’s better to be ahead of schedule than behind. 3. Know what progress looks like and track it. For each stage of the process, identify an indicator of progress (or a few) and consistently track yourself against them. The tracking isn’t as much about the numerical measure of how you’re performing, as it is about the discipline of holding yourself accountable & the ability to make adjustments to approach and expectations. Schedule weekly tracking sessions to gather, process and analyze the data. 4. Adjust as needed. Backward planning is designed for long-term goals and it’s impossible to predict every step and anticipate every contingency. Review your plan on a monthly basis to adjust timelines and goals based on real-time feedback and information. 5. Use Visualization Techniques. It’s hard to plan for a goal that spans months and is the endpoint of a complex journey. Visualization can help with that. Start by visualizing the end point in all it’s dimensional glory — what it will look and feel like when you reach your goal. Imagine every detail. Spend 5 minutes journaling about that vision and feeling of success as a source of motivation throughout your pursuit. In that frame of mind, walk backward through the journey of all the steps it took to get to the goal. As you visualize the process, take note of
During your weekly tracking sessions and monthly goal reviews, take 5 minutes at the outset to step back into that vision. Let the image of your successful outcome fuel you. I started this issue with a reference to the halfway point in the year. This marker of time presents an opportunity to look back with regret or disdain for things not yet accomplished or to look forward with clarity & intention at what the focus of your next 6 months (& beyond) will be. It’s also just a social construct. We define the time intervals and we attach meaning to them. If you achieve a major personal goal on January 23rd instead of by December 31st does that make the accomplishment any less impactful? Almost definitely not. What matters is not the “done by” date, it’s the doing. And there’s no day like today (whether it’s a fabricated calendar milestone or not) to get started on the goals that will bring meaning and fulfillment to your life. So set a goal to pick one of these strategies and take the first step toward implementing it. And if you want to talk it out first or during, send me a note. I’m always here for a swift kick in the rear or a strategy sesh. :) Have a great week, Nicole |
Straightforward strategies to pursue your purpose, accelerate your growth, show up as your whole self, increase higher order thinking and align your time with your values. What to try. Why it Works. For When it Matters.
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