You Can Re-Energize Yourself To Accomplish Your Goals By Following This Advice
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One of my favorite activities at the beginning of the year is to set my goals. I love the process of thinking what I want to accomplish, making and executing those plans, writing them down, and using pictures to visualize the results.
I think many of us feel that excitement of having a brand-new year ahead of us in which everything is possible. It is like having a blank canvas where you can draw (or paste) any reality you want.
And then life happens. We go back to work after the holiday break. There are hundreds of emails waiting for us in our inbox (considering that we were not processing email while on holiday). At work, there are new (or the same) priorities requiring our attention. Kids resume school and other activities.
The canvas is starting to fill up with what is coming at us vs. the picture we wanted to paint.
How can we recapture the magic of January 1st (or 2nd or 3rd)?
By doing a midyear review. Yes, you read correctly. I am proposing that we adapt a practice done today in many companies to our personal goals.
The first two weeks in July are the natural middle point in which to do so.
Since you wrote down your goals (you did, didn’t you?), locate the document, notebook, or vision board where you have them.
Start with your accomplishments
Revel in realizing what you have accomplished so far. You may have realized all your priorities and are ready to set new ones. Or you may have a mixed bag of completed, in progress, and not started goals. I am usually in this latter category.
Enjoy the accomplishments. Give yourself credit for them and celebrate even if it is by having your favorite drink or giving yourself a pad in the back.
Reflect on how you feel with your performance. What have you learned? What is the impact those achievements bring to your life?
For example, let us say that you met the target amount you set for your emergency fund. You can think about the sacrifices, big or small, you made to achieve this goal.
Your lessons may include a) what you thought to be a big sacrifice was actually a small one; b) having money aside for a rainy day is more important than one night (or several) of drinks with co-workers.
The impact of achieving this goal is that now you have peace of mind. You noticed that you are not feeling as stressed out at work and you have even started to set small boundaries so you can have more balance.
What about the other goals?
It is highly likely that you will have goals with ‘in progress’ or ‘not started’ status, or, in a quite common status of ‘on and off’ – i.e., you started it but stopped it.
This is where we prioritize where we want to focus our energy between now and the end of the year. We may have been over ambitious back in January. Unexpected events may have come up.
Let us say that your goal was to go to the gym five times per week for one hour each time. Back in January, you registered in your local gym, bought the cute outfits, went the first two weeks, and now your snickers are accumulating dust in your closet.
During this midyear review conversation with yourself, reflect on your motivations to get in shape and how you are going about it. Just because all your friends go to the gym does not mean that is the best path for you. Maybe you prefer to take dance lessons.
It is possible that going back and forth to the gym plus the time to shower and get ready takes longer than you expected. So instead of ‘failing’ the one hour minimum you set for yourself, you decided to drop it altogether.
You could recalibrate your goal and set it for thirty minutes during the workweek and forty-five minutes during the weekend.
The beauty of the midyear review is that now you have the ‘feedback’ of the first half of the year, and you can readjust without feeling guilty.
Am I allowed to add or remove goals?
Of course! After all these are your goals.
When you look at the goals under ‘not started’ status, what comes to mind? Frequently, our inner critic will start saying ‘you are not capable enough, talented enough, productive enough…’ Sometimes the message can be harsher like ‘you idiot! I knew you would be too lazy to get your butt to the gym’.
Take a deep breath and change the conversation. Start by pondering ‘how come I have not given this goal time and energy?’ There are multiple reasons.
Let us say that your goal was to write articles on LinkedIn because everyone says that you must be a ‘thought leader’. You have not written anything so far. How come?
You notice that you and your neighbor created a series of photographs of your garden across the different seasons. You invested time and energy in this activity that was not on your original list of goals. How come?
One possibility is that writing is not your thing. You prefer to do pictures or videos. Then why torture yourself with a goal that is not important to you? Life is too short.
The message here is that you can remove, add, or reschedule goals considering the information you now have from the first six months of the year.
Confirm that the goals you have are what you want, and not what everyone else wants you to want.
One more thing before you go
Taking time to do a midyear review reignites the motivation and energy to go after what is important to us. We have the opportunity to realign our goals with our purpose, priorities, and overall life mission.
We have the benefit of the first six months of information – what is working, what is not working, what surprises came up, what we want to do differently.
You can add, remove, and reschedule goals. At the end of the day, it is your plan. Not your parents, significant other, kids, or friends plan. You are meeting the expectations you have for yourself. You are realizing your potential.
With this renewed energy, prioritize those objectives that you want to achieve by year-end. Dust off the tennis shoes and start where you are, with a walk around the block. Start putting one dollar per day in a jar to build your emergency fund. Create that content that is bubbling and bursting out of your seams in the way that resonates with you. Take those two minutes to observe your breathing, you will be meditating in no time.
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” Zig Ziglar, American author
What do you want to accomplish by year end? Please, let us know in the comments.
As a leadership coach, I enable talent to achieve bold goals with high standards. My mission is to empower underrepresented women in the financial industry transition from mid to senior level leadership positions using mental fitness to achieve peak performance, peace of mind, and healthier relationships.