I’m going to talk to you a little bit about my process for goal setting, visioning and really creating a strong and bold plan for the next year.
I usually start this process in the end of November. I’m starting it early this year because I want to get a head start on planning for an awesome year. This year was a year of disruption and chaos and upheaval with the pandemic, with all of the market swings, with the election now, today, by the way, if you haven’t voted, get out and vote, it’s important to have a voice in this conversation. And it was just a very bizarre year, one unlike we’ve ever seen before, but what it offered to the people that were diligent and were opportunists, was a chance to pivot.
A chance to think differently to change our perspective, our worldview, our framework of thought and achievement, and lay the groundwork, make the investments in ourself and the resources we need to surround ourselves with. To reset and recalibrate our goals and our vision for next year in the future and this new decade. So when I started my goal process and goal setting for this year, last year in November 2019, who could have predicted what would have happened in 2020? So this year was definitely not the way that we wanted to start our decade, but nonetheless, we have to adapt.
We the have ability to adapt, react, and pivot
We don’t have control over a lot of things in the world around us, but we do have an ability to adapt, react, and pivot and change our approach. So here’s a process overview that I have found great value in. That’s really served me well to achieve great things in my businesses and my career and in my life. And maybe you can get some value from them. See if they will help inspire, organize, and really set a bold plan in motion for your best year yet. I typically create space and time in my schedule and life, meaning I get out of my ordinary day to day. Go on a personal retreat, usually go out of state or up to the mountains or somewhere quiet for usually a couple of days. It allows me to get more focused, to be away from home and work and office.
I start to lay out broadly speaking a vision. What do I want the next 12 months to look like? What are the key, big goals. Those big, scary goals I want to achieve in my various businesses. What do I want to achieve personally, in my relationships with friends and family? How do I want to show up? Where am I going to create space and impact and serve those people that I love the most in life. Next, I look personally at my hobbies, travel, personal development goals and enrichment. So for instance, what do I want to be reading and consuming? And, you know, information wise, how many books a month? I read 3 books a month this year, and I want to push that to 4 books a month next year.
Always be consuming content information, always be learning, always be a student of the world and your craft
Where do I want to travel? What are the hobbies I want to continue to do or get back into from before? So this year I’ve made a huge commitment. I’ve spent the time and the money and created the space now to get back to things I really love doing, which is being an avid outdoorsman. So by that, I mean, hiking, backpacking, skiing, Alpine touring in the back country, going all over to new places and exploring state and national parks. That means snowmobiling, camping off the grid and enjoying nature. I enjoy that because it’s part being athletic and fit, part survival, and part exploration. I’ve created time for that.
So what are you going to be doing for yourself, hobbies, and personal enrichment growth and development
Next, I look at my health. I look at what are the habits and the routines and the investments that I want to make. So I’m continually maintaining and sustaining a high level of energy. Right now I come to you with high level of energy. You’re probably used to that. It’s my autopilot. It’s kind of my basis and my default level of energy, but not everybody’s like that. We need to be intentional and deliberate about cultivating a high level of energy. A high energy is correlated positively with high output, high-performance success and achievement and fulfillment in this life. I know this because of the work that I’ve done, the studies I’ve read, the clients that I’ve coached to it and what I’ve embraced and created in my own life.
Now to step back for a second on the business career goals, this is important
Because we want to think big. I want to challenge and inspire you to think bigger than you normally do. I create some really audacious goals for the next year, I did for this year. And I achieved most of them. I’d say 70 to 75% of the goals I set out to do this year I achieved. Anything over 60%, I consider success for this reason. I’m setting really unusually an extraordinary large goals at the beginning of the year. So they’re not typical average goals. They’re really big meaning if I had half of them or half of the metric, it’s still really strong growth. So that’s how I look at it. Doesn’t mean that’s how you have to look at it, but it’s a good way of setting a framework for really, really big and bold achievement.
Push the envelope on where do you want to take the revenue of your company
- How do you want to be more profitable?
- What new innovation are you going to invest in?
- How are you going to continue to innovate right in product and service?
- What are you going to do for customer delivery and really wowing your customers?
So look at all these things. Plan and think big, come up with a strategy and a resource list. What it’s going to take from financial resources and investment to the people and human capital and talent, to the space, to the creativity, to the different skills you might need to learn or bring onto your team in order to execute on these ideas and goals.
And that got me super excited because of the size and how audacious those goals and vision was for the next decade. Then I created a cool list, which I call the 101 goals for your life, which is something you can create. I think I learned it from Jack Canfield, who is a great, best selling author. He has created a bunch of really helpful books. One of which is Success Principles. He has a running list of a 101 goals he wants to achieve in his life and their big goals. For me, these are things like, learning how to fly, which is overcoming my last major fear, which is heights. Getting my pilot’s license, getting my helicopter license and buying a helicopter and traveling the world in the area that way.
Another one is visiting all continents in the world, another one is visiting at least 75% of the countries, which is about a hundred and over 150 countries. That’s big, that’s bold. I have to visit at least 5 to 7 countries a year and even make that possible in my lifetime. It’s thinking creatively and getting excited about the future about next year, about your life and what you’re trying to live and achieve and create that lifestyle by design.
So these are some ideas, hopefully they inspire you to think differently about that goal setting, visioning, creating a plan for next year to make it your best year yet. Remember create space in your schedule. Ideally get away from your day to day, go on a trip or an overnight with you or your loved one, one to two nights is all you need really get creative, write this stuff out, create visuals, get it from your head and a brain dump out onto paper.
I use Google docs because I keep it all really organized per year and per different documents. And it really is helpful to me. And it’s helped me achieve some really great things in life. So hopefully this resonated in some way. It inspired you to get you thinking about goal setting about the visioning next year and planning for that to make it your best year. If it did let me know. I love to hear from you guys as always drop me a comment and share with somebody could benefit too. And again, as always to your success, your happiness and your freedom. We’ll talk to you next week.