It’s well and truly that time of year where we are all thinking about or talking about planning some new goals and new years resolutions. The habits we wish to leave behind in 2023 and the goals we want to accomplish this time next year in business. It’s easy to get caught up in the hubbub of the world is you oyster sort of feeling. And I’m not here to strip away your new year excitement around your goal. But rather help share some really useful tips that can help you plan the right way for you and your goals in business.
Get Clear On What Type of Person You Are.
First it’s important to know who you are and what best works for you. Everyone listening to me will thrives in a different environment. The same goes for goal planning I don’t believe there is a one size fits all approach. Personally I know I’m a bit of stressy-besy when it comes to working under pressure, can really cripple my productivity, derail my attention and lead me to feeling overwhelmed. So a less pressured approach to plan is the sweet spot for me and I’ll be taking through my own. Remember creating your own style of planning is a process full of trails and a lot of errors to genuinely find what works best for you.
Mistakes I’ve Made
Firstly I have been guilty in the past to get way ahead of myself. I would put on my new years rose tinted glassed that some how made me believe that I could accomplish all my goals within the first 3 months. As long as I just made the perfect plan and worked hard enough! Although this approach was somewhat good that I actually made goals and had a plan, it was usually very ambitious. And if I’m being perfectly honest I sometimes felt overwhelmed just looking at it. I’ve come to realise recently that creating a detailed heavy plan was providing me with more pressure. This really wasn’t the right way to plan for my own traits.
Why I’m Choosing To Have One Goal
I usually create three goals, that seemed like a fair number I think everyone usually picks. But, this year I’m taking a very different approach to goals. I’m will only be planning ahead for simple one goal at a time, and only if that goal gets completed I can decide upon the next. You maybe thinking well if you do that, you’re more likely to only complete one goal next year and are more likely to procrastinate and waste time on just one thing. But, there is evidence that very much the opposite happens.
Study: “The Fewer, the better: Number of Goals and Saving Behaviour”.
There’s a study called “The Fewer, the better: Number of Goals and Saving Behaviour”. And they had one group, split into two groups, the first group had to save for one goal their kids tuitions. The other group got told to create multiples goals, so kid tuitions, retirement, healthcare and maybe a few other things. What they found was the both groups did 50% better with goal than without. But they also found that the group with one savings goal doubled their savings, then the group who had multiple goals. What they concluded was the group with had multiple goals, reduce their mental bandwidth. Because that person had to choose one savings pot to put their money in over another. Basically having to make a complex trade off, making it difficult because they knew that money wasn’t going towards the other savings pots they had. I believe that one goal gives you less of chance to lose momentum, by focusing on just one goal you’re more likely to see your efforts and progress grow far quicker too. As you’re not having to divide up your time and weekly actions and task across completing multiple goals. But rather just one so you chip away at it much faster.
Why One Goal Makes Practical Sense
We also mustn’t forget when planning that you already have a daily set of tasks and projects that you have a responsible. Goals aren’t the only thing you can focus on everyday of the week, otherwise all the other things in your business won’t run smoothly. For example just because you set a goal to provide your community with an online course. you can’t just forget about posting on social media and uploading to your blog whilst you create that course. Any type of business will always have a set of tasks that need you to keep ticking over, whilst you make time to chip away at your goal along side them. So really having one goal may sound crazy, but when you really think about how much time you have to work on it every week. Makes you realise it actually makes practical sense to only have one goal rather than three. Doesn’t mean you won’t complete more goals in one year but does mean your focused at the goal in hand. Hopefully by now I’ve persuaded you a one goal at a time system is worth a test for you now let’s get heavy into the planning system.
Stop Trying To Predict 6 Month Ahead
My problem I have found in the past with planning is that I tend to plan way too far into the future. If you’re like me and have always been a lover of lists, stationary and planning. Then you’ll know we can fall into the trap of spending way to much time on devising a in-depth plan than actually doing the task that need to be done on that plan.
And let’s gain some perspective the plan you’re making now can’t really predict where you’ll be in 6 months. Unforeseeable things may arise which can hold up your progress you may not get all the things you think done in the specific timeframe in your plan. Which has a domino effect on all your other task and deadline dates etc. So remember you won’t really know how many of the task you’ll say you’ll have done, completed by. This is where I think i’ve been going a little wrong in the past, making a plan that goes too far ahead of where I actually am today does not work for someone like me. When I know I’m falling behind on my plan I don’t want really want to refer back to the plan I created. I already feel like I’ve failed it some how, or blame that the plan wasn’t working!
On Going Planning Through The Year
Therefore, this year I’ll be taking a different approach to how I plan for a goal throughout the year. I definitely know that i am the type of person who can procrastinate over a planning by tweaking adding things to perfect it. Therefore I really shouldn’t be planning so far ahead of myself otherwise I’ll get stuck here spend hours thinking about what tasks I should be completing in 6 weeks time rather than getting on with what I should be doing on that day, week or month. So personally I think i’m going to try and create a ruff skeleton plan for 2023 with my one goal. I call it a skeleton plan because it’s going to be a very loose and not a lot detail basically I’m fleshing this plan out with bells and whilst. Which may sound slightly controversial and not what others usually advise you to do
Creating A Skeleton Plan For My One Goal
But hear me out, I will brainstorm and create 3 to 5 major milestone to reach said goal. Providing me with just enough clarity on how to reach that goal but not focusing on all the daily little actions to get there yet. So I don’t get overwhelmed yet. Currently I’m a little undecided about whether to plot these milestones into a quarterly timeframe as they may start to feel little to like deadlines and I’m hesitant about creating deadlines. Only because I have scheduled in deadlines in the past to hit and by 6 weeks into the year and I have already felt rather behind and already a little bit defeated If I haven’t hit them which doesn’t do anything good to your motivation or momentum.
Planning Is a Fine Dance Between…
When it comes to planning I find that there is this a fine dance between keeping yourself on track and focused so you actually achieve your goal. But also not creating unnecessary pressure, overwhelm and burnout. That’s why I think the idea of a skeleton plan is helpful it provides you with just enough to give you actionable points on how to reach your goal. Without you spending hours on crunching timeframes and daily actions too early on in the process. However I’m also aware that these milestone in your skeleton plan won’t really provide you much guidance when it comes to your day to day actions. And if you only have these major milestone we may feel unsure about what is we need to be tackling in the month, week or day. So in-conjunction I’ll pick one day a week to create a simple weekly plan. This weekly planning will allow me to map out the slightly smaller tasks I need to tick off in the week ahead. These task will be referred to as my weeks objective and will limit myself to 3 objectives a weeks to try and complete. If these objectives are again still a little too broad for me to wrap my head around on the day. I have the options to further break it down into bitesize To Do’s to complete for that day and again usually limit my to do’s 3 a day.
Benefits Of This New Planning Process
For me this new planning process has cut out me trying to predict too many things in-advance. And prevents me from procrastinating over every little to-do before the day I’m suppose to be working on it. Plus it gives me time to take stock of my previous progress and too keep planning appropriately around other responsibilities and engagements I may have that week. I think this process is a my most realistic planning process for goals yet. And it’s been create by looking inwardly and being more self-aware about my strength and weakness. And the environment and process I thrive in most. Plus taking some really great tips and techniques from the goal planning experts. I know some of you listening work better with being thrown into the deepen and need to have multiple goals the same people that thrive under the philosophy of aiming for the moon and landing in the starts and you feel perfectly content with that, don’t change you planning method if it’s been working for you in the past. But if you can relate to what I’ve previous mention and you know that you plan for goal last year collected dust. Then maybe it times to revaluate and create you own personal way of planning for your goals. This is why personal my methods have drastically changed, I had unexpected hiccups throughout 2022.
What I’ve Learnt
I’ve realised my last plan wasn’t really looked at after month 3. Personally I felt I need a planning system that worked for me and was far more flexible when unforeseeable things do arise. I really enjoyed creating this episode, and really appreciate all of you who keep come back to listen with me every week specially over the holidays. I hope today that you walk away with some tasty takeways. This episode has really helped me understand how I intent to plan for 2023. So I do encourage anyone listening before you grab out your pen and paper to set goals and plans. Take a moment to think about your own traits what things didn’t work for you with your last years plan. And what created more stress, overwhelmed and burnout? Even think about your strength & weaknesses and the environment you know, you thrive best in. Once you’ve done that start researching and implement your own unique planning systems for your goal or goals in 2023. Missed last weeks episode how to get organised in 2023.