Last week I posted about how I plan out an upcoming month, and I referenced a lot to my yearly and quarterly goals. In this post, I want to take a step back and go more in depth on how I set and review my goals so that I can accomplish them and live my best life!
Why set any goals in the 1st place? I’m a results-driven and goal-oriented person. If I’m not working towards something, I feel lost and aimless.
I didn’t get serious about goal setting until my sophomore year of college. Before that, my only real goals were:
- Pass your classes.
- Keep working at your part time job.
- Show up to extracurricular practices/events I committed to.
These were goals that had been ingrained in me since starting grade school, and they didn’t need to be written down or reviewed. I just did them because that was the expectation.
Once I got to my sophomore year of college, I started to realize that if I wanted more out of my life, I was going to have to do more than just meet the current expectation that had been the same since grade school. I am blessed that I was surrounded by great friends who were also looking to get more out of life too, and I credit them with helping me change in perspective on goal setting.
Setting goals changed my life. It enabled me to pursue different opportunities – like creating a community outreach program and working 3 internships while in school. It allowed me to complete my Master’s Degree and thesis in 1 year. It helped me find direction in my life post-college graduation.
Today, I’m going to share my 4 step goal setting and review routine.
1. What do you want to do?
The first step to all of this is to set some goals! I like to use the “SMART” method of setting goals:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable & achievable
Relevant
Time bound
I like using this method because it makes it really easy to evaluate progress. I always like to use the example that almost has had in their life – “I want to lose weight.” By itself, that is a goal, but it’s not very SMART.
A better version of this goal would be “I want to lose 10 lbs by the end of 2020.” It’s specific in the amount of weight you specified that you want to lose. It’s measureable – you can measure weight loss with a scale. It’s attainable/achievable – that’s less than 1 lb per week, which should be pretty attainable to most people. It’s relevant, assuming you actually have 10 lbs to lose. And, most importantly, it’s time bound – you gave yourself a deadline to complete this by.
You can set goals for any time period, but the 1st thing you have to do is determine what you want to do. Are you looking for a new job? Do you want to go back to school? Looking to start a new organization? Trying to get good grades? Don’t limit yourself to a certain number of goals, but don’t pressure yourself to add more to your list than you want to. Whether you have 1 goal or 100 – do what works best for you!
2. Set yearly goals.
Once you determined what you want to do, set your goals for the year. If some of the goals that you set are long term (5 year plan type of stuff), what do you need to accomplish this year to work on that 5 year plan?
If your goals are more short term, list them out on a Yearly Goals list. I personally don’t have a 5 year plan, and I prefer to set goals on a yearly basis. I don’t have a specific method for this – I generally just brain dump everything onto the page into each category for the different things I want to accomplish.
I like to keep all my goals categorized into the 4 different areas of my life – personal, organizations, blog, and work – on my yearly, quarterly, and monthly lists. Organize your goals (or don’t organize them) in whatever way works best for you!
3. Reflect quarterly and set quarterly goals.
I’ve heard of some people that like to write down their yearly goals every day to help motivate them and prevent them from losing sight on what they want to accomplish. While I don’t necessarily re-write all my yearly goals every day, I make it a point to review them consistently. This starts with my quarterly reflections.
At the end of every quarter, I like to ask myself 4 different questions:
- What went well?
- What could have gone better?
- How can I build upon my success?
- How can I improve on the shortcomings?
I answer these as honestly as I can with myself, and I try to give answers for every aspect of my life – personal, blog, organizations, and work are my categories, but use whatever fits best for you! I usually reference my goals for the year and from the last quarter to answer these too. What did I accomplish, and what got left behind? Did I prioritize the projects I worked on as best as I could?
After I answer those 4 questions, I set my goals for the upcoming quarter. If any of the answers to those questions are relevant to my goals, I’ll add that to my list of quarterly goals. I also review my yearly goals, and I ask myself, what is the next step I need to take to complete this goal? For example, if I want to complete a 5K by the end of the year, completing a Couch-to-5K program would be a good quarterly goal to have.
4. Determine monthly, weekly, and daily tasks.
Now that I have my yearly goals broken down for the upcoming quarter, I plan for my upcoming month. More details for that can be found in last week’s blog post. The main thing I do when planning out my month is to review my goals for the quarter and ask myself:
- What is the next step I need to take in order to complete this goal by the end of the quarter?
- Do I have time to work on this goal this month?
Breaking down my goals in to more manageable steps makes them easier to accomplish. I also try to avoid overwhelming myself with too many tasks. If I don’t think I’ll have time to work on something in a given month, I acknowledge that and move on to the next goal in my review.
Each week (on Monday mornings specifically), I review my monthly goals/task list and further break down my goals into even smaller steps. These go onto my task list for the week. And every morning, I review my weekly task list to determine what I need to do for that day to accomplish my plan for the week.
Weekly and daily I don’t keep my goals/tasks categorized. I like to just lay them all out on 1 big list. I find that this works best for me, but you do you!
There you have it – my 4 step goal setting routine so I can actually achieve those New Year’s resolutions! As you can see, the main theme there is “how can I break down this big goal into small achievable steps?” Once you break down your goals into more manageable pieces and implement a consistent reviewing routine, accomplishing them is much easier. I hope you can adapt this goal setting routine to fit your needs and go after your best life!
What are your goals for 2020?