Chunk Into Goals – Planning 2011

Click here for Day One: Examine Your Starting Point of ‘Designing your Best 2011!”
Click here for Day Two: Determine Your Values
Click here for Day Three: Visualize Your End Point
Day Four: Chunk Into Goals
Day Five: Stumbling Blocks
Day Six: Public Declaration/Word for the Year (and a wee small contest!)

Today is where Day One, Two and Three come together in one glorious whoosh of activities.

1. Read through your Values. Is there anything in your Values that isn’t currently being actively fulfilled or worked on? For example, if Family is a value of yours but you never see yours, a goal around family time seems like a natural. Write down possible goals for the areas that have holes in your Values system.

2. Read through your Essay from yesterday. Where are you on that path way? Write down 10 concrete baby steps you could take in a year to get you closer to your dream house, body, partner or whatever you wrote down.

3. Look at the following categories and pick 5 (only 5!) to work on for the year:

Financial
Spiritual
Physical/Health
Fitness
Leisure Time/Recreation
Career
Family
Public Service
Business
Health
Artistic
Learning/Intellectual
Living Environment
Personal Relationship
Psychological/Attitude

Write down possible goals for each of these 5 categories. You can write down potential goals for each of the categories but the bare minimum is to write down goals for your top 5 categories.

Putting it all together

Do any of the above categories have a natural fit with the answers from #1 (Values) or #2 (Essay)? Now it’s time to make some tough choices. What are you going to choose as your Top Five Goals for the year from all of the options (1, 2 & 3)? At this point, don’t be surprised if you have 5 or 20 worthy potential goals. Remember, goals need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic/Relevant, Time Oriented). I’ve written a few times about what a SMART goal looks like. If you need a refresher, here are 3 posts on SMART goal setting (here, here and here).

You should come out of this exercise with 5 worthy goals for 2010 based on your Values and your Idealized Life Essay. With the knowledge and understanding you gleaned from Day 1 (our ruthless self-assessment day), you’ll be well on your way to being 100% successful with your goals in 2011. Tomorrow, I’ll be taking a short break to post a fun winter tutorial (soap!) but on Friday, I’ll be back with a post on overcoming obstacles and pitfalls when on your path to achieving goals.