Monthly Archives: December 2018

Planning 2019: Set process orientated goals

Career, E-Book Writing, Planning

In the last blog post I talked of keeping it simple and just having 3 goals maximum when planning 2019. I also talked of quarterly planning. Break your three annual goals down into quarterly goals and have 3 quarterly goals.  From there you plan each week and then each day. In this post I want to talk about the importance of setting process orientated goals in 2019.

Planning 2019

What is a process orientated goal?

A process orientated goal is one that focuses on what you are doing and not on what the end result will be. You trust the process to get you where you want to go. If you want to lose 10 kg in weight you can set a process orientated goal of going to the gym 4 times a week or walking for 30 minutes every day etc. This is easily measurable and doable; you are totally in charge of whether or not your reach your goal. The process will lead you to your eventual goal.

Right now after the Christmas indulgences I do need to lose some weight. I do know for a fact that I could run a half marathon by April if I started training today. That is because I can set process orientated goals which will lead me to the big goal of the half marathon. In other words focus on what I need to do this week.  The focus is only on each week and each day – what do I have to do today. How many minutes do I have to run today. Focus on the process will take me to the big goal of the half marathon.

Want to write a book in 2019?

Another example of a process goal is developing an online course or writing a book. These are big goals. They are challenging goals. In this case don’t just say “I will have published my book by December 31st 2019”. Set a process orientated goal which might go like: “I will work on my book for one hour per day from 6am – 7am, six days per week during 2019”. I can assure you that if you focus on the process and achieve your daily goals that your book will get written (I have written 4 books and published 2 online course so I know this works!).

Life Long Learning & planning 2019

Can I suggest a process orientated goal for you in 2019. Set yourself a goal around learning. Life Long Learning is a key skill/attribute for the coming decades of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Technology is driving change in our jobs/working lives and we all need to keep learning and growing or our skills and knowledge will become obsolete. Set yourself a goal of learning something for an hour a day, six days a week in 2019. Take online or offline courses, listen to audio books and podcasts and read. You can do this during your commute time, early in the morning or whatever time suits. Each week you will have 6 hours of learning and by the end of 2019 you will have spent about 312 hours learning new things. That works out at a month and a half of learning in 2019 – all from one process goal!  What new skills will you have learned by the end of 2019?

Best wishes,

Tom

PS Why not start your learning habit for 2019 by taking my online course: Transform your Life: 30 Experiments in personal change.  Get the course at the special price of $9.99 for readers of this blog (course also includes a free copy of my ebook).

2019 goals: How my strategic planning failure is helping me set better goals

Goal Achievement, Planning

 

I want to share with you my strategic planning failure, what I learned from it and how it is helping me better plan my 2019 goals.  Back in 2015 I decided to develop a strategic plan for my life for 1 year, 3 years and 5 years.  I did this because at the time I was receiving support from a Life Coach and she suggested I needed to develop these plans.  I set goals for the following areas of my life:

  • Friends and Family
  • Career/Skills
  • Finances
  • Health and Well being
  • Significant Other/Romance
  • Personal Development
  • Fun and Recreation
  • Physical environment

This morning I was writing in my journal – something I have been doing every morning since 2010 ( I use a software called The Journal by DavidRM). What I like to do is travel back in time to see what I was doing and thinking on this day last year, two years ago etc.  When I went back to December 23rd 2015 I discovered my strategic plans.  Wow – what an eye opener!

What did I learn about Strategic Planning?

Well my one year plan made some sense.  When you think about it we can think ahead to what we will be doing in the coming year.  We can make some fairly good guesses about what we will be doing and what we can likely achieve.  When I looked at my 3 year and 5  year plans they were frankly a pile of garbage!  They had little relationship to my current life.  They were just a wish list of things it would have been great to achieve at that time (but don’t inspire me at all today!).  Another thing that I learned is that there were just too many goals.  When you have so many goals across different areas of your life you end up dissipating your energy and have no focus.

Problems with 3-5 Year Planning

What I can see is that the plans were unable to take into account changes.  The world is changing around us in unpredictable ways.  There are also unpredictable events in our own lives.   We are also changing and growing as people.  When I look at some of the career goals I set myself 3 years ago they look totally uninteresting to me now.  I have changed and I have developed new skills and interests which were unknowable to me three years ago.  A key skill to develop for the 4th Industrial Revolution is Life Long Learning.  If you engage in Life Long Learning you will be a different person in a year or two.  These new skills and interests that you develop will open up new opportunities to you that you cannot foresee.  Your 3-5 year goals will not reflect the person you have changed into.

Lessons I have learned from my strategic planning

There are a number of lessons that I have learned from my strategic planning exercise.

  1.  Planning too far out (3-5 year+ horizon) is not much use.  The world is changing around us and we are changing in unpredictable ways.
  2. If fact you should be changing as you learn new skills and develop new interests – Life Long Learning is a key skill to develop in a fast changing world.  If you don’t change you will become outdated very fast.
  3. A one year horizon is valuable but beyond that it starts to become foggy and vague.
  4. Setting too many goals is confusing.  Set a small number of achievable goals with a one year horizon.  I like to set three goals for the year.  Break these three goals into quarterly goals.  Again I like to set no more than three quarterly goals.
  5. Goals become outdated as the world changes and as we change.  We need to to constantly review and tweek them, change them, discard them and add new goals.
  6. Keep a diary – you can learn a lot by reflecting back on past planning exercises and reviewing past goals.

Planning 2019

Set your 2019 goals

Select three key transformative goals that you want to achieve for yourself in 2019.  Three goals that will change your life for the better.  Don’t think beyond 2019 – keep your time horizon where you can make realistic goals.  Based on your three 2019 goals set three sub-goals for the first quarter of 2019.  That is from January 1st 2019 up to March 31st 2019.  Write those three quarterly goals down and place them where you can see them.  Each week set weekly goals based on your quarterly goals.  Every day make sure you set actions to achieve those weekly goals.  At the end of the 1st quarter review progress and set three goals for the second quarter 2019.  Don’t be surprised if goals from the first quarter roll into the second quarter.   That is because we are often overoptimistic in what we can achieve.  This is know as the planning fallacy.   If new opportunities come up during the year then don’t be afraid to change your goals or incorporate new goals.  This is a fast changing world and we need the flexibility to change as well.  Goals are not a straight jacket!

I hope my reflections help you make better and more realistic plans for 2019.

Best wishes,

Tom

P.S. To get lots more ideas and information on goal setting, visioning and planning check out my course 30 Experiments in personal change.  Get the course at the special price of $9.99 for readers of this blog.