We’re a quarter of the way through 2022. Work is hectic. The family has demands of you. Someone you know has had COVID. You’re barely making it week to week and are hanging out for those long weekends coming up. That new year’s resolution you had to go to the gym every day – now a distant memory.
Many of us practice the habit of making a new year’s resolution – often to change something, to achieve something or build something. Our resolutions often point toward starting fresh and having a productive year. But a lot of us don’t fulfil this. It’s easy to make the excuse of life getting in the way, like I did above, but a lot of the time it’s because we don’t develop the RESOLVE to fulfill them. The goal is clear but the path to reach that goal is uncertain, and the intention to create that path isn’t set.
No matter what your new year’s resolution is or what your goals are, it’s not the resolution or actual goal which creates the likelihood of whether you’ll get there. It’s your approach. I get it. It can be tough. Tiresome. Hopeless. How many of you think “oh no, not again! I’ve set a goal that I’m failing at”. You feel overwhelmed. It can be a lot of pressure and a lot of stress. Weight and burden on our shoulders.
Or some of us LOVE setting goals. That feeling of opening up a new diary or a new notebook. But deep down still – there is a voice of doubt, dilemma, confusion perhaps.
What are you still working on?
It’s not about HOW to set the goals. Because setting the goals doesn’t mean you get there. Just writing it down doesn’t work. How are results CREATED? Goals are set year after year. But how do you actually manifest results?
It’s not the resolution/goal, or the probability of whether you’ll get there or not. It’s your approach. It’s your methodology, to get those results.
Step 1
We live in a culture that is goal based. It all starts with what your goal is. Where do you want to get to? What do you want to happen at the end? What’s the result you desire? Western society operates on a results mindset, rather than the way to get there. We need an intention approach. Lead by your intention. It’s more powerful than a result.
When you don’t get the result that intention must not have happened. But, when you know the intention, that intention keeps fuelling you. You’ve been trying to go to the gym 3 times a week. You make it once a week. From a results point of view, you’ve missed your goal. But your intention is doing this for your own health and wellness. This will fuel you to get there three times. But if you don’t get the result, you put pressure on yourself. You start talking down on yourself. That leads to a lot of self-judgement and a lot of self-sabotage. I’m doing this BECAUSE….what’s your intention? What’s your input? What is it that you’re bringing into this process? Why is this so important? Dig deep. If you haven’t really thought about this or articulated your reason, you can’t go further.
Step 2
We need to monitor our progress regularly. Weeks, months go by. You think “oh well, last week I didn’t make it, so I’m a failure”. “This week, I made it, I’m great!”. Then we fail again, and the cycle continues.
We’re only measuring results. We’re not MONITORING results. For instance, we may measure how much weight we lost. We measure the result but we don’t monitor it. You are just data collecting. Data recording. What is my weight? How much money did I save this week? It’s just a number. You learn very little from that number.
Be curious. Monitor. Be observant as to whether your day or week goes well or whether it’s difficult or challenging. Make time to say why – what happened? What did I do differently this week? What went well? What didn’t?
When we don’t do this we just become complacent. Complacency kills the cat NOT curiosity. Complacency sets in when we just measure. When we have a good week we don’t know why and when we have a bad week we don’t know why. Measuring is what our apps do. It’s what our fitbits do. It is important but only if you monitor the reason behind the measurement. It is not just good enough to just measure the data.
Step 3
Most of us are at the theoretical stage of our goals. We understand that this change is important, needed and necessary. For instance, the idea that we need to take care of the environment. We all know we should. That’s a theoretical understanding. We all know it’s better if we eat healthy and exercise. However, when you try use just your willpower to change the result, but your level of change is only theoretical, you will not achieve results. Theory does not lead to transformation.
The next thing is meaningfulness. How meaningful is it to me? WHY is this important to me? There is no point in setting a goal that you don’t believe in. Once you’ve identified this you need to figure out how does this practically work in my life? How does it flow in your day to day? You need to practically commit and then apply it. Following this, you will then observe and MONITOR those results.
Step 4
What’s the difference between efficiency and effectiveness? Efficiency is the ability to do a lot of things. Effectiveness is doing important things. Efficiency is “I’m busy, I get a lot done, I tick a lot of boxes.” But can you say that you had an effective week?
Effective says “I made a dent this week. I made an impact.” It’s the notion of doing a lot of things versus important things. We all have to do a lot of things but are we making time to do the important things. We make ourselves so so SO busy with being efficient because we don’t want to put the brain power and energy into being effective. So we’d rather clutter our day with lots of insignificant activities, than clear our day for one or two significant activities. It’s a mindset shift.
Do you want an effective year or an efficient year? Do you want to say “I’ve been impactful” or “I’ve been busy”? I know we all fall into the trap of being ‘busy’, of doing a lot of ‘stuff’. But have you been doing the stuff that makes the impact? Look at the people in your life who have made big leaps. Who have made major improvements? Who has pivoted their career? Who has made big strides? Are they doing a lot of things or the IMPORTANT things? Look at each week and each month in this way.
Step 5
We need to find a balance between thinking and doing. Action is important. Act then reflect. Thinking is important but do it less than you think you should. A lot of us struggle with procrastination and over-thinking. We think, re-think and think again (guilty!). However, we should aim to make this split 70% action and 30% thinking. You don’t want to just do do do or just think think think.
What is your ratio between thinking and doing? Is it 50/50? 60/40? Where are you on that ratio? We need to shift from thinking more and instead, do more. How many times have we sat in meetings at work, and we talk talk talk about a plan but then nothing ever eventuates from it? Or we spend time writing lists and making spreadsheets but how much time is wasted on this rather than the actual execution.
You may feel uncomfortable initially. You may get some anxiety. But then that thinking turns into monitoring. The thinking goes to observing, goes to monitoring, which was what we covered in Step2.
Don’t focus on “that didn’t get me anywhere” or “what was the point?” “I didn’t’ achieve anything” That rhetoric is stopping us. Instead of focusing on what didn’t work, focus on: what did work? What can I shift?
I hope some of these steps help with the excitement and enthusiasm of pushing forward and hitting your goals for the rest of the year.
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