Well the year-end has been and gone. The winter solstice was a few weeks ago already and we are not yet counting how many sleeps until Santa makes his next superhuman voyage around the world. In amongst all the festive frenzy, I enjoyed taking time out to think about what I have achieved. What went well. What can be forgotten about. What needs more attention. Where I am going in the forthcoming year. New Year Goals.
Practical Goal Setting
I mentioned in my previous post about my love for the 12 Week Year book. It is a great way of looking at a smaller ‘execution cycle’. Let’s not plan over a year – let’s think of the next 12 weeks as our ‘year’. We get the excitement and impetus that a ‘year-end’ deadline brings us – and we get it 4 times a year! This book also looks at how our broader goals fit in with our passion, our vision, where we want to be and what we want to achieve.
I have found it invaluable for helping to identify the strategic goals that I want to achieve and then to carve out time to achieve them. That was the bit that I always struggled with. I always get client stuff done but getting round to the strategic stuff can be really difficult. Anyway I re-read the book (again) and used it as a point of focus.
Meaningful Accountability
It is very easy to create goals and plans around our seemingly endless ‘busy work’ and that is an excellent route to overwhelm and stress. It is also tempting to set too many goals that we feel we ‘should’ be doing. And all too easy to set goals that are too large and complex to feel like we are making steady and useful progress towards achievement. It can also feel lonely in a virtual world, trying to plod through our visions and goals and to-do lists on our own. Who cares if we struggle or succeed? Meaningful and supportive ‘accountability’ support can be hard to find. It is a key element of the weekly work patterns of the ’12weekyear’, and I didn’t have it.
Getting Social
So I want to share with you a couple of unique and group based activities organised by my good friend Winnie Anderson. She is on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/winnie.anderson1
These activities address those concerns and problems really nicely.
Firstly Winnie organises an excellent ‘Come As You’ll Be’ virtual party. Put yourself 5 years into the future. Decide what you want to have achieved and experienced and then report into the party and share with the group. You are visualising what you want and this provides a mechanism to talk about it and share with a like-minded group. It is powerful. It is also a LOT of fun. Winnie runs a facebook group called Achievers Club where we share our successes and support each other in a friendly manner. It is with members of this group that we have our party. For this group, Winnie also hosts a monthly First Friday networking group where we get to know each other, help and support each other.
The ‘Come As You’ll Be’ event helps to firm up those longer term goals. For me, it helps me express my longer term, higher level goals around which I can base my ’12 week year’.
Habits & Goals & Micro-steps
There is a growing realisation that to achieve our goals we need to write them down. And then take sustained action to keep moving forwards achieving them. That sustained action becomes a habit. we can create a habit of making small micro steps towards our goal.
Celebrate Success, However ‘Small’
It is really important that we also acknowledge and celebrate when we have made the habit. Celebrate when we have created time to do something towards achieving our goal. Even if it was ‘just’ 5 minutes thinking, we can acknowledge what we have achieved. We can catch ourselves with negative thoughts, and stop mentally beating ourselves up when we feel we haven’t achieved ‘enough’.
Take Action, Share Success, Support Each Other
This is so hard when we try and battle on alone. This is where the second activity organised by Winnie really comes into it’s own. She is the host of ‘The Action Takers Group’ which is a small, paid, group which uses a software platform to log our goal(s) and record our daily progress. We cheer on our successes and support each other when we are feeling fed up or have problems we would love help with. I have been part of this group since it’s founding days in late 2016. I really enjoy being a part of it. It is a powerful and effective way to keep track of my goals, progress, good days and not so good days. No more feeling alone. We work in 4 week ‘cycles’ which I find fits well with my ’12weekyear’ activities and planning horizon.
Interesting Activities
As part of the group we have several events and activities throughout the month, including monthly goal setting and celebrations, q&a sessions where we discuss ‘stuff’ we would like help and support with, and also ‘work sprints’. These are 20 minute focused sessions where we tackle something important that we want to get done. It is a great mental and
motivation booster. We did a work sprint earlier this week and had the theme of ‘tidying up’ to get a great start to the new year. You know the sort of stuff I mean – sort out those piles of paper lurking in corners where no-one can see, or how about tackling that overflowing inbox. That’s what I did – I started to (finally) tackle a hideous inbox situation.
Getting started was a wonderful feeling. So wonderful that I carried on into the evening and got rid of over 7000 emails. Yippee.
It is my hope that these activities sound interesting for you. They truly will help you to make some useful goals, and make small consistent steps to achieving them, in an environment that is fun, friendly, supportive and kind. If you want to find out more then you can find Winnie Anderson on Facebook and on her website www.winnieanderson.com. You can find out more about the Action Takers Group at winnieanderson.com/takeaction
Well I wrote more than I thought I would on this subject. Time to stop writing and go refine my new year goals and therefore my goals for my next 4 week cycle. If you want to feel happier about goals and achieving them then it’s time to search out Winnie and become a member of The Action Takers Group.
I am looking forward to seeing you there soon!
P.S.
This is not any kind of affiliate content or anything like that. This is just an honest post about something great that a real friend has created. I truly love being a part of. That’s all. 🙂
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