I have stumbled on a very successful method of goal setting that is working extremely well for me – just have to share it!
It’s the last day of the month today (and the last day of the financial year for NZ – yep I’m an accountant!). On the last day of the month I now do something that I have never done before.
I stop and review the past month’s goals.
In the past I haven’t been that great at setting AND achieving yearly goals. You know how it goes – we get really keen on 1st January and by February we have thrown in the towel.
This year was going to be different, so I had to come up with a better strategy.
What is my strategy?
It’s a evolving strategy – so far I have:
- stopped drifting
- gained vision
- and now -I am setting monthly goals – because you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time, right?
I call it my monthly game plan – the words “game plan” sound far more exciting than “goals” – don’t you think?
Every Monday I track how I am doing in my Bullet Journal. Then at the end of the month I have a review meeting with myself.
Here are 5 Reasons why setting monthly goals is working for me:
- It is easier for me to achieve bite sizes goals than big yearly ones – stops the feeling of being overwhelmed
- It creates regular positive feedback in my monthly reviews
- Monthly goals reduce discouragement
- Creates momentum – they say that success begets success
- Keeps goal setting fresh – it’s feels more exciting to be starting new goals every month
I would love to hear what your strategies are for achieving your goals – please leave a comment below:
Love it. Goal setting for a whole year never worked for me. By the end of a few months Id be in despair cause Id forgotten or the year was to far away so yes a month out is much more within reach. Hey I’m reading this old book by Dale Carnegie”How to stop worrying and start living” and he sites 2 famous men that did a self appraisal each week.H P Howell, a leader in Amercian Finance. For years he kept a engagement book showing all his appointments during the day and each Saturday evening he would sit down and self examine and review and appraise his work during the week. He would ask himself “What mistakes did I make that time? What did I do that was right-and in what way could I improve my performance? What lessons can I learn from that experience? Sometimes this weekly review makes me very unhappy. and I am astonished at my own blunders. As the years have gone by the blunders have got less frequent and this system has done more for me than any other thing I have ever attempted”. Ben Franklin didn’t wait for a whole week he sat down every night. He discovered he had 13 serious faults. Here are 3 of them: wasting time, stewing over trifles, arguing and contradicting people. Wise old Ben Franklin realized that, unless he eliminated these handicaps, he wastn going to get very far. So he battled with one of his shortcomings every day of a week, and kept a record of who had won each days slugging match. Next day he would pick out another bad habit. He did this every week for 2 years. No wonder he became one of the best-loved and most influential men America ever produced..
Thanks for your comment. Yes goal setting for 5 years and 1 year never worked for me either.I am even thinking at the moment that I need to break it down even more -to a week. So your quote from Dale Carnegie is very appropriate to me right now – thanks for sharing!