5 Steps To Nailing Your Goals and have the best year ever

Like most people, the beginning of the year is when I like to set some goals or intentions for the year but how do you actually stick to them? 

A little known fact, In my past life – pre kids – I used to work with executives across multinational companies helping them with their business and people strategies. It was my job to help create and deliver a framework to help them set aspirational goals that they could achieve. 

Here’s how I did it and do it for myself. 

Step One: Don’t Rush the Process

There’s plenty of time so don’t feel like you have to have your goals laid out by the start of January. 

This is your plan so take your time but have a date in mind you’d like to pin them down. Setting goals that you care about will take some time.

Step Two: Brainstorm

Grab a piece of paper and go crazy. Get out all the thoughts and ideas in your head, and don’t limit yourself or let self doubt creep in, this is not the time to narrow your thoughts just let it flow. Post its are a great way to brainstorm, you’ll see why in step 3.

Step Three: 4-6 Key Goals

Now that you have brain dumped all of your ideas and thoughts you can start to group them . E.g. if you have a product launch and you had a lot of ideas around that product then that would all be under one umbrella.

If you’ve used Post It notes you can move them around your table or chart and it’s a simple and easy way to group your ideas.

Step Four SMART Goals

Now let’s make your goals S.M.A.R.T, for those of you that don’t know this concept, SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Timebound. This is a common principle in setting goals and one that I have used for years. There’s no point reinventing the wheel, most business practices have been defined and frameworks are in place to allow you to plug and play, so to speak. Why use it? It’s a framework that will help you reach your goals, whether you are just getting established, have an established business or what to use this for personal goals and growth.

E.g. You goal may be to launch a product so you write product launch. 

Your SMART goal will be to launch XXX product into XXX market by (insert date) achieving sales of X amount by the end of the financial year.

I would generally have 5 key goals for the year and one of those would be personal and personal development focussed.

Step Five: Create a System

Once you’ve set your annual goals break them out per quarter and per month to create small steps to achieve your goals. If you want the template I use, you can download it below.

Once you have them broken down it’s time to share it with someone else to help drive accountability.

This system will help you to prioritise and deliver your goals.

I wish you all the success in the world.

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