So back in early January, we probably all, you know, sat down, got our pens out, and wrote out some goals. And these goals, the ones that I’m talking about today, are specifically within your business rather than the personal ones that you made. But I’m sure we’ve all made a few of those as well. Now, if you haven’t already listened to my new goal planning approach that I implemented just the start of this year, I would highly recommend you listening to that episode after this one or maybe before.
It is number 69 and it’s called How to Make Your Best Goal Planning System for 2023. I will be referencing a lot about this today and give some personal insights and updates in how I’ve tweaked it and the things that have really made a difference. So if you wanna have a little listen to that before I get going, then by all means switch.
If not, or you’ve already listened to it stay with me and just grab some of the best bits. I feel like now we are already a couple months into the year. This is the time when we start to thinking where’s the time gone and how are we already into monthly of the year? And some of you might feel like we’re, you know, sort.
The Goal Draught
Losing steam, lost a little bit of motivation, about our goals, and I think this is month three is like the breaking point, whether we actually stick to the goals that we made or we’ve just sort of, you know, slowly let them fade away. , and this is why I wanted to sort of do this episode at this point of the year because we can still put it back.
We’ve still got enough time. We have, just because we haven’t completed a goal yet doesn’t mean that we’re not going to, and I feel like a lot of people out there feel this. Like after two months of the new year, if you haven’t achieved anything, you’re feeling, I don’t know, like you, you are losing steam or maybe like motivation, but now, Time of recording, that episode that I told you to go watch, I was unsure with some things about my goal planning system.
The Deadlines Dillema
I gave you a pretty good, in depth, , process and step by step approach of what I was planning on doing. But there was a few things that I was unsure about and one of them was a really big one, and it was about whether to give, my goals a. , this is. One that I should have really realised, , I needed to give it a deadline.
I don’t like deadlines, but because I’ve only picked one goal, the deadline isn’t so scary anymore because I’ve only got one thing to focus on besides obviously every other little to-dos and tasks and admin stuff amongst that, we need to remember. When we have goals, when we’re working in our business, we don’t ha always have the opportunity to just shut down and work on the goal for like a whole week or something.
Sometimes we do have to still keep things ticking over. So I was questioning whether to have a deadline for my one goal, and I quickly realised that if I didn’t give it a deadline, then it is just one of those things where. It would take forever. I’d just procrastinate over it. If I said I was gonna do it in a month, I think it, that was a little unrealistic.
So I did give myself a very realistic timeframe to achieve it in. Um, but I kind of thought that I’d be able to finish it in six to eight weeks. And I’ll tell you, I was nowhere close to finishing it in six to eight weeks. And so I’m so glad that I. Gave myself that little bit of space and I didn’t have to rush.
And again, we need to remember that life happens, things arise, but we don’t, or we can’t plan for within these systems. So I actually last month had to take a few days off and it was nice to actually be able to take them off without stressing. The things that I thought I was gonna get done that day and then thinking, oh, everything’s gonna get pushed back, because my plan wasn’t really made like that.
The 12 Week Year
So I sort of refreshed my memory on the book. The 12 Week Year. I feel like everyone probably knows this book now, but if you haven’t read it, I would highly recommend it. I haven’t decided to implement all the things that are in the book cause it’s quite intense. So I’ve just really simply taken the sort of 12 Week idea, breaking the year up into four chunks.
I really liked that idea because I think we always underestimate what we can get done in a year, and we always overestimate what we can get done in a month. I feel like with the 12 week here, it makes it really easy to see what you need to get done within, uh, the chunk that you’re in. And then the next one you are not focused on yet because that’s next.
Okay. So if you think of having, um, one goal, this is what I’m kind of , sort of recommending you, is that you have it for three, depending obviously on the goal. I mean, my goal is definitely worth giving it three months time, um, timeframe. But if your goal’s obviously quite quick, then maybe you could maybe do it in two months.
But I’m more thinking if you get it done quicker. In within a month into your three months, then that’s great and you can just reset again, um, and give another goal three months. I prefer doing it in like blocks of three months at a time, rather than overwhelming yourself to. Give yourself three little goals and try and hit them all in three months.
I think it’s just better to focus on one personally for me. So yes, I’m using the sort of a 12 week year method here. Instead of coming up with a deadline, I’m just giving everything three months at a time. , and I’m not even thinking about the next three month block, which would start for me. Which would start, end of March, sort of April time.
So, I have a few ideas that I’ve jotted down in the meantime that have popped up into my head, but I’m not really given it any thought. I’ve not fleshed it out. I’ve not really thought about it too much, which is actually really nice. And one of the things that I really underestimated because I’m not thinking about other things that I should be doing.
I’m so much more zoned in into what I should be doing now. What was the one thing that I wanted to get done? Now I cannot tell you how actually, calmer that makes you feel when you are working at your desk. And we need to remember that it’s so easy to get distracted by and we’re very easy to detract, distract ourselves.
Why One Goal At A Time Is Best For Me
And when we have all these other things that we’re trying to think about and trying to get done, then it makes us feel like we’re not getting the thing that’s most important done. So I’ve just picked basically, The one goal that I felt like was the most important, and I’m just trying to get that done now within the three weeks.
Um, another thing that I wanted to recommend, which I definitely underestimated in my, um, episode, I think it was, uh, number 69, was creating these milestones. I feel like everyone tells you to flesh out a plan of all the things to that you need to do to get that goal down. And. I actually would tell you not to do that.
To run the other way from that, people tell you that, because personally for me, that just overwhelmed me. And I would spend all this time putting so much effort into creating this beautiful plan, and then as soon as a few days got missed, I was basically screwed. I’m like, my plan didn’t work. If I got really far behind a couple of weeks, then I’d feel I wasn’t on on task.
I was sort of behind, I didn’t really wanna look at the plan again because I felt like it wasn’t working, because I wasn’t where I should have been and all those things. So if you feel like that has happened to you or is happening to you right now, into 2023, then create milestones.
Realistic Timeframes
Because these are so much nicer, I’ve not even plotted them. sort of, given them like, I don’t wanna say deadlines, but I’ve given them timeframes of when or how long they should take and then, um, space them out within my three months of when they should be kind of be getting hit. But I mean, this again, I’ve given myself a, a realistic timeframe of three months to get them done and then I’ve given myself realistic timeframes for each milestone. There was a podcast I listen to the other day, and, it they said that whatever you think is gonna take you. Three weeks, double it like however you think, however long you think something’s gonna take. A good rule of thumb is double how long, double that number. And that you really worked out well for me, um, because I think I did always underestimate, or oh, sorry, overestimate what I could get done. So milestones have been lovely because. A goal can seem very daunting looking at this thing that you wanna get done.
And then when we break them up into milestones, once we hit those, they kind of give you this little mini rush of, or like a win. So people say that. , it’s easier to sort of tick off small goals to make yourself feel motivated, to give yourself sort of a, um, energy rush to get things done. You feel more productive so then you wanna keep doing more things. That’s what I kind of felt like I was getting with having these milestones. And on top of that, Objectives for every week. So amongst these milestones, so I don’t actually have a plan that’s been already written out for this three months. I weekly create three objectives that I need to get done.
Three objectives. That’s quite actually, what’s the, A tall order, I guess. But I try and make sure that they’re objectives that I know that I could probably get done that week. And then daily, I just create my to-dos because I don’t really need to make them at the weekend. I just do them on the day and I don’t give myself more than three.
Benefits Of Milestones
Again, I sort of have this rule of thumb of three apparently in my goal planning system. So definitely having milestones has allowed me to. Sort of close the bridge between where I wanna get to and where I currently am and how to get there feels a lot clearer really. And I know that probably you already know this, but I think it’s people get too bogged down into the like nitty gritty bits, like the to-dos that don’t really matter in the ground schemes of reaching that goal.
What My Goal Planning Looks Like Broken Down
I mean, I have to-dos daily. That I just write out in my diary. But my main milestones are the things that I’m trying to sort of focus on towards. That’s the next step. So I’m not looking at the end goal all the time. I’m just looking at the next phase. Anyway, so that’s kind of it for me today. I know I sort of rambled this one on.
Just to sort of recap, um, everything is, so if you’re losing momentum and you kind of feel like you’ve already lost the plot with all your goals, it’s time to try out a few new things and. , kind of try out what I’ve done because it’s actually really, really helped me surprisingly more than I thought. I thought it was a good idea in January and it has turned out to be a very good idea, um, with my system.
So definitely try it out. Obviously, if your planning system has been working for you, you don’t need to change. It’s, it is obviously doing the job, but if you are constantly not hitting your goals, constantly feeling like you’re behind, um, and trying to divide up your time, then definitely give this a go.
Recap Best Bits
So one of my things is definitely create milestones to reach your main goal or if you want more than one goal milestone for each of your goals. Create weekly objectives to reaching those milestones. I like to do three objectives a week. I don’t always hit them. Actually, that’s a good point to say. I don’t actually always hit my objectives, but I know what I need to be sort of hitting majority of them.
So I try and aim for at least two a week If I get three, that’s great. If I don’t, I try not to stress about it. And that’s just another objective for the next week. Um, and then I’d just like to do my to-dos on the. , if you’re feeling defeated, thinking about, just think about prioritising one and forget the others.
So you are not having to divvy up all your time into separate parts. It just means that you’ve probably taken on too much more than you can handle. And although it’s great to have all these goals and ideas and things that you wanna accomplish, it is probably better to just get one done than rather feeling like.
Pushing a heavy rock upper hill and trying to get all three done so, and you see so much more progress quickly when you’re just trying to do one. So that’s definitely a plus. Lastly, assigning a goal to your 12 week plan. rather than trying to achieve three goals in 12 months is definitely something that I think is gonna really work for me.
Obviously I’ve not done it for a whole year yet, so we’ll find out. But that’s definitely something that I think is working at the moment for me so far, and not thinking about the next goal for the next month. So if you found this. , then by all means, go have a little listen to episode 69. I give you my complete step by step, but this one has now just given you a little bit more of an insight into how it’s working and why it’s working and some of the things I underestimated at the beginning of the year.
So yeah, go have a little listen to it if you really liked what I’ve said in this episode, and I hope that it helps, and I’ll see you here next week. Thanks. Bye.