GOAL RE/SETTING. HOW TO HIT YOUR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL OBJECTIVES.

Are your January resolutions slipping from achieving those big hairy audacious goals? Most of us have been there before. It’s quite normal. Luckily, a simple exercise of goal resetting can greatly help you to come back on track. In this article, you will find out how to plan well and tweak it when necessary.

Before you start planning or resetting, make sure that:

• Being in the right mental and emotional state
• A permissive mindset – derailing happens but what matters is to take a lesson and strive for a better version of us than yesterday.
• Analysis of what has been causing the plan not to bring satisfying results.

As challenging as ticking all the above boxes is, awareness is the key. Simply, if we’re able to see any deficiencies then it’s easier to work on improving them.

It’s best to identify drifting away from your goal as soon as possible. The situation becomes slightly tricky when you don’t really have precise goals for your business in the first place. That’s your starting point. Let’s go back to the basics:

A worksheet to write everything down will come in handy. We have made one for you.

You’ve probably heard about SMART goals, you might have even written those objectives according to that format. The acronym stands for five aspects that a goal should contain: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.

The goals should be set as short and long term ones, one set for personal and one for professional. It’s also worth asking yourself a question: How does my short term goal link to long time goals?

Write two or three SMART goals for each category (short- and long-term ones). Creating too many goals could be counterproductive and dilute your focus, resulting in not making enough impact to hit them.

You can get different planning sheets for your daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual goals. There is research backing the recommendation to plan on paper rather than digitally. Whichever option you choose, we have prepared free templates for you to download. They should help to plan your goals well, and reset them, when needed.

Calculate numerical goals. Instead of 5% growth, also include what number this will take you to, i.e. The 5% growth of community-building activity will bring 50 new followers each month).

When it comes to professional goals, there is less flexibility in terms of values. Typically, a healthy business will have its business strategy and KPIs. Is your goal aligned with your business aspirations? How much frontline staff and customer feedback has been taken into account while goal setting? Have I factored in conditions outside my business? What does success look like according at my organisations? What is the indicator of productivity?

You have much greater freedom with your personal goals.

In order to start doing something different you have to change your behaviour and these things aren’t easy unless you know why. This is the right moment to have a reflection on your values. Ask yourself a question:

• ‘why do I want to do x?’
• ‘what I will achieve as a result?’
• ‘why is it important to me?’

If self-reflection is new to you, take your time to think through your goals. This process will not only make your goals stronger but the clearer the goal, the more your brain will be helping you to achieve them.

Book 30 mins every week to check the progress. Monthly and quarterly sessions are great to check and reflect on the goal milestones and plan ahead. Use our goal re/setting worksheets for planning.

Already have goals that didn’t work out? Let’s jump onto goal resetting then. The most advisable technique is to look back at the roots of the goals not being hit. Which areas were within and which were outside your control? Did you have any historical benchmarks when setting them? Go through your action plan rather than beliefs (such as ones undermining any of your abilities).

When planning, try to avoid these five common planning mistakes:

• Think ‘strategy’ before selecting tactics
• As your plan goes far in time, adjust the level of detail accordingly
• Define ‘what’ and ‘why’ but stay flexible with the ‘how’
• Tweak your plans on the go for the best results. Make your goals meaningful. Always.
• Implement your plan and remember the superiority of outcome to actions.

All in all, goal resetting is an important yet complex exercise that needs preparation. We hope that you’ll find our tips and templates useful.

Planning is a skill, it can be learnt. If we inspired you with this article, please consider exploring the topic further, we have some great recommendations:

1. Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals by Michael Hyatt

This book helps to envision the reader’s best twelve months that an individual can have. Five life-changing steps to change for the better.

https://uk.bookshop.org/books/your-best-year-ever-a-5-step-plan-for-achieving-your-most-important-goals/9780801075896

2. Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

What if you could increase your productivity ten-fold? Impossible? This Pulitzer-Prize winner has other opinions. Duhigg is tackling one of the most crucial questions in the subject matter: How can each of us achieve more?

https://uk.bookshop.org/books/smarter-faster-better-the-secrets-of-being-productive/9781847947437

3. Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide by Caroline Adams Miller and Michael B. Frisch

This recent title combines the best of two worlds: positive psychology with the latest research within the science of goal accomplishment. A must-read for those in need of resetting their goals

https://uk.bookshop.org/books/creating-your-best-life-the-ultimate-life-list-guide/9781454942603

Once you’ve completed the worksheets, look around for the right software to help you stay on track. Choose one, in which you can create projects, phases and tasks that then you can use to assign your worked hours. Such a smart workflow will provide you with excellent visibility of time spent on anything that moves (and doesn’t!) the needle for your goals. Try our Clarity365 timesheet, absence and expense software that includes a project management tool. It’s free for 30 days.