Many of us really struggle with the concept of SMART goals, it’s so job-performance-review that many of us think “ugh” when we see it and that’s as far as we get. This is all about how to view goals differently.

Don’t like the word goal?

I am a fan of the word “goal”, but as with SMART, it can be a real turn-off for some, so please consider goal to be any word that works well for you. Ambition, aim, aspiration, desire, dream, objective, target? Let me know if you have another one.

Viewing goals differently

I live my life in seasons, and never more so than when it comes to goal-setting. I’m not a fan of celebrating New Year, not least because it interferes with my birthday far too much, but my new year starts in Spring. Winter is always an exceptionally busy time of year for me and Spring always seems to be rather calm. So the end of Winter is ideal time for my goals yearly review, with the new ones starting off in Spring.

There is no perfect time to set a goal, other than in the present. Why wait til X comes along to be able to Y. Many of us do, though. BUT. There is some consideration needed. If you choose to start a new diet, it’s not setting yourself up for success saying “I’m starting today” if you have no meal plan, haven’t been to the supermarket for fresh and healthy food, and you haven’t a strategy for when those cravings hit or someone irritates the hell out of you.

Surprisingly, considering how regimental I am in pretty much every area of my life, my goal setting and review process has always been a tad haphazard. By setting goals yearly, I can review quarterly. However, breaking it down into weekly and daily steps kind of goes out the window for me. I know how it should go in my head, I just don’t commit the smaller steps to paper meaning my road to somewhere is quite fluid, more like a river I guess, and it has always amazed me that I am able to allow this “lack of perfectionism” into my life. Until my new strategy came along a couple of years ago that felt less restrictive.

I am quite envious of my friends who have a laid-back attitude to life and pick one or two goals for the year. Actually, they don’t even refer them to as goals, just as something they might want to do this year! I have, on average, 18 goals per year…

My categories

I split my goals into five categories: 1) wellness, 2) career, 3) family and home, 4) financial, and 5) spiritual. Within each of those I then choose goals based on what I want to achieve and I try to limit myself to three per category. Some rely on one another, some are completely standalone.

In 2017 I decided on simple and picked a goal of 40 before 40. It was a simple enough concept, just had 40 things I’d never done before to fit into the last year of my 30’s. I don’t think I quite understood simple at the time.

Review time

There it is again, sounding all job-like. However, to view goals differently, at every review I consider:

  • if I’m happy
  • am I passionate about the goal
  • am I looking forward to it
  • does it still fit with what I really want to do.

Granted, I don’t love the wellness goals all the time – if it’s chucking with rain and freezing cold you bet I’m not looking forward to that run, or if it’s 30◦c come to think of it, and I said last year no more autumn marathons. Yet now it’s lockdown and London moved to October….

Yearly focus word

Another great way to view your goals differently is to choose one word to define how you want to feel with what you want to achieve. I have been choosing a word for over ten years now to help align my goals with my core values and how I want to feel.

My most empowering words have been:

  • transform, turned out to be the year I left a toxic relationship.
  • strength, which was the year I was diagnosed with ME and I certainly needed strength! Perhaps stubborn also works…
  • knowledge, I became a student of many things including finally going to university.
  • compassion, so appropriate as this was the year I had a near-relapse of my ME and other health issues and had to drop out of uni.
  • mindful, no more half-way fun. If I’m not going to be happy doing it, I stop doing it.

So what’s 2020’s word? Intention. As much as I have actively lived my work and home lives very aligned the past few years, I was beginning to feel I was making decisions without proper consideration, usually with a no, as by the time I finished work and had to commute home I just wanted to be at home. Not that it’s a bad thing, many of us could do with saying no more often. My spending started to get a little out of control again to, so I have a note on both my screen and my wallet that says “ROI” to make me think before spending. It has helped, but not always… It’s finding the little tricks that work for you.

Next time I’ll share my goal setting strategy.

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