In the past, New Year’s Eve was the most depressing time of the year to me. I’d concentrate on all of the “failures” I’d had that year, swear off setting new goals, and with a dramatic flourish, cry, ‘Why even try?’ When I thought about it rationally, I realised two things: firstly, that I’d had plenty of wins, (I just wasn’t focusing on them) and secondly, that I hadn’t been setting goals the right way. Since then, I’ve figured out the best way to approach it, so if you want to follow the 8 steps I swear by to set meaningful goals, grab a notebook and get ready to plan your best year yet!

STEP 1: IDENTIFY YOUR VALUES

Before you start setting goals for the year, you should always reflect on your values. If you don’t, there are 2 possible outcomes:

1. You don’t achieve your goals because the ones you set have no meaning to you.
2. You achieve your goals, only to find that you feel unfulfilled and/or find the whole experience unrewarding, and maybe even a waste of time.

Personally, I’ve found that the goals I don’t achieve are the ones I usually don’t really care about. When you set goals that you care about i.e. when your goals are aligned with your values, you can successfully work towards your goals with confidence and commitment.

Take a look at the selection of values below.

Using this selection as a guide, identify your 5 main values. Write them down, then circle the 3 that are most important to you. You’ll see how this is relevant later.

STEP 2: ASK YOURSELF HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL

Now that you’ve identified what you value, ask yourself how you want to feel this year. Don’t skip this step! If, for example you want to feel happy and relaxed, setting ambitious goals that’re going to stress you out is probably not the best call! Your goals should help you reach the feelings you desire, and if they don’t, you’ll either need to change your expectations or change your goals.

Identifying feelings can sometimes be so simple it’s hard to pin down. Some examples of feelings include (feeling) happy, connected, helpful, inspired, healthy, and even knowledgeable. Ask yourself this question: How do I want to feel this year? Now write down all the adjectives that come to mind. You have 3 minutes… GO!

STEP 3: DECIDE WHAT EXPERIENCES YOU WANT TO HAVE

You may have heard the phrase, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.” Most people see goal-setting as outcome or destination orientated, and they don’t consider the process in getting there. But when you really think about the important milestones in your life, what do you remember – the journey or the destination? Do you remember working your butt off for years at Uni, or do you remember the graduation ceremony?

When I first started using this eight-step process for goal-setting, I struggled a bit with this step. If you need to work backwards, you can – it can take a bit of practice to get into this mindset. Think about what you want to achieve i.e. goals/outcome, then identify what experiences you want to have to get there. For example, I want to keep learning new things (experience) in order to grow my blog (outcome).

Changing how you look at goals by focusing on the journey rather than the outcome will make goal-setting 100% more fulfilling. Even if you don’t quite reach your goals, it won’t matter as much because in the end because you’ll still probably get the experiences you want. To set truly meaningful goals, they will need to be anchored to your values and desired feelings and experiences.

STEP 4: CHOOSE OUTER GOALS

Here’s another new concept: Outer Goals. These are the goals where the focus is on becoming someone or achieving something. Essentially, Outer Goals make you appear outwardly successful.

While there’s nothing wrong with setting Outer Goals, particularly ones aligned with your values and desired feelings and experiences, if these are the only types of goals you set, there may be a problem. Outer Goals value others’ perception of you over your own perception of self. There also needs to be balance between what’s happening on the outside and what’s happening on the inside. If you only focus on the outside, there won’t be equilibrium.

Below are some examples of Outer Goals. Note that each goal is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic/relevant and time bound. Following the SMART method is the most effective way to write goals.

Now that you’ve seen some examples, write down no more than 3 of your own Outer Goals for the year. Remember that they should (at least loosely) reflect the information you recorded in the previous steps – values, desired feelings and desired experiences.

STEP 5: CHOOSE INNER GOALS

I’ve discussed Outer Goals, now let’s look at Inner Goals. As I’m sure you can guess, Inner Goals are more personal, focusing on how you want to feel rather than how you want to look. This could mean feeling at peace, without reason, not as a result of a particular external situation.

Below are some examples of Inner Goals. Note that each goal follows the SMART method again – which I wholeheartedly encourage you to apply.

Now write down no more than 2 of your own Inner Goals for the year. These will hopefully align quite closely with the information you recorded in response to Steps 1-3.

STEP 6: SET MINI-GOALS FOR EACH QUARTER

Goal-setting is fun, right? I’m glad you agree, because you’re about to do a teensy bit more. Most people may have a mixture of long-term and short-term goals for the year, others may have a bunch of long-term goals. No matter what your goals are, it’ll be easier to tackle them in baby steps, rather than all at once, if only to avoid overwhelm.

How do you do this? Set 1-2 mini-goals based on your yearly goals for each quarter (3 months) of the year. Here’s an example:

What are your goals for Quarter 1, 2019? Write them down in your notebook.

STEP 7: RECORD TASKS AND SET DEADLINES TO ACHIEVE EACH GOAL

Call me crazy, but for the longest time I set goals with vague deadlines and no action plan to get me there. I was one of those people that thought, ‘Oh, it’ll work out somehow’ or ‘I’ll make time for it as I go, no need to plan too much now.’ Well, honey, let me tell you, goals without clear action plans and deadlines have only one destination: straight down the plughole!

You’ve (hopefully) written down all of your mini-goals, now write down all of the tasks you’ll need to do to complete those mini-goals for the next quarter, even the things that’ll take you minutes to complete. While I’m all for planning as much in advance as possible, stick to planning only one quarter in advance this time. Sometimes things change, so you needn’t waste your time planning for more than that. Set aside time at the end of each quarter to plan the next one.

Now that you’ve written down all the tasks you need to do to complete your mini-goals (projects), I want you to record each of these tasks in your calendar, planner or a project management tool under specific dates. You should have a deadline for when you want to complete each mini-goal or goal, so the dates that you’ll complete these tasks should help you to complete your goals by that time. While I love my paper planner, I highly recommend using a project management tool like ClickUp  for this step so you can easily move tasks around and view your projects and their tasks in different ways. I use ClickUp  rather than Asana  or Trello  because it’s completely free, you can make your work private, and unlike Asana, gives all users access to its full range of features without a payment plan.

STEP 8: CHOOSE YOUR REWARDS

There are many ways to set goals, similarly there are many ways to set rewards. If you decide to set short-term and long-term goals (recommended), you could plan rewards for when you reach each milestone of the goal. Alternatively, you could set rewards for each week that you successfully achieve all the tasks that will lead to the completion of (a) long-term goal/s. There are many more ways to set rewards, so feel free to use a different reward system if you want to, these are simply the ways I find best.

When choosing the rewards themselves, it’s important to make them personal to you. When the rewards are something you actually want to do or get, it’ll make you a whole lot more motivated to keep going! Just be wary of choosing rewards that could derail your efforts, such as a reward of “A big juicy steak” if your goal is to “Lose 20kg”. You can see how this could go downhill quite easily, can’t you?

Examples of rewards include:

• Going to a carnival, festival or local show.
• Listening to your favourite podcast.
• Watching a movie.
• Buying a fancy smoothie.
• Trying a new recipe.
• Doing your nails.
• Visiting the library.
• Meeting a friend for lunch.
• Going to bed early.
• Buying new sportswear.
• Reading on the patio.

In your notebook, write down the rewards you will use, as well as how and when you will access them. I would also make a note of this in your planner. It always helps to have something to look forward to!

Now that you’ve completed all 8 steps in this process, your goal-setting is done! Give yourself a pat on the back, and do yourself one last favour – keep your goals and action plan somewhere you’ll see them every day so that you don’t forget about them!

If you want to succeed with goal-setting, you’ve got to set meaningful goals. Meaningful goals are founded in your values, and will help you to achieve the feelings and experiences you crave, if set correctly. When writing goals, you should always follow the SMART method and aim to achieve goals which will bring both outward success and inner happiness. By breaking your larger goals into smaller goals that you can achieve each quarter, and by breaking these goals down into tasks, you should easily succeed in achieving your goals by your set deadline and reap the rewards of your hard work. All you have to do is follow this 8-step process!

Need some help? Download the Goal-Getter Workbook now.

What are your goals for this year? Let me know in the comments below.

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Happy New Year!

Grace x