2018 has been making a steady march toward the end of the year. I started working on my 2019 goals at the beginning of December, before Christmas plans and preparation got too busy. I did this last year, and ended up finishing fairly strong on most of my 2018 goals since I had good implementation projects and plans. As usually occurs, a few things happened in early December that prevented me from making progress until just before Christmas.
I wanted to give you an overview of what my goal setting process looked like this year (taking out the few weeks where other things distracted me from making progress). This is what it looked like:
2019 Goal Setting Part 1
There were two things that I was doing at the same time to get started. First, I worked through the Powersheets prep work, which included evaluating how I felt I was doing in different life areas (e.g. work, spouse, family, friends, etc.). At the same time, I started writing down what I didn’t finish in 2018 and wanted to continue working on, what projects and goals I might want to work on in 2019, and random semi-related tasks as they occurred to me. I tried to put these in separate work/persona lists as I went along. I also began work on my 3 words for 2019. (Rather than a single word, I usually choose 3, a la Chris Brogan’s 3 words.)
2019 Goal Setting Part 2
I continued working through the Powersheets prep work, taking my brainstorming notes and turning them into goal ideas. I then took my work outside of the Powersheets book to wordsmith my goals into something that encouraged me to work on them. Specifically, I wanted to make my health goal different from last year. My weight and habits tend to yo-yo all over the place depending on how consistent I have been and how busy I am at work. I knew focusing on weight was mostly just an exercise in frustration. I also made sure that I wrote down a ‘why’ for each of my goals as a reminder for me when I lost momentum.
2019 Goal Setting Part 3
I let my subconscious work on my goals a little bit and didn’t work on them actively for a few days. I had a quiet day at home mid-week and felt inspired, so I sat down and finished my goals and started to break them down into projects and tasks I could work on.
With my health goal, I decided to focus only on habits in 2019 rather than focusing on the results solely. I know what habits support a healthy life – getting enough sleep, eating whole foods, exercising regularly. I also know that when I get busy with work and life, those habits tend to fall by the wayside.
A while ago, I filmed a video that included information on creating morning and evening routines. In it, I talked about how it was best to have two versions – the one to use when everything is ideal and going well, and the one that degrades gracefully when life is out of control to contain just the bare minimum. I’ve decided that need to do that with my health habits: ones that are the ideal version (and that’s what I will focus – one habit per month) and ones that are a gracefully degraded version that still keep me inching forward so I don’t completely lose momentum.
Even though I don’t feel completely done the next step of goal setting – breaking the goals down into projects, at least I have a direction set for next year.
Here’s to a blessed and productive 2019!
What goal are you most excited about for next year?
