Reviewing your goals is as important as setting them.
Most people don’t put into their calendars a regular time to review their goals. If that’s you, I suggest you review your goals at least every three months. Our program is set up to review your quarterly goals twice a month and to review your one-year goals (if you are a yearly member) once every quarter. This cadence allows you to create a habit of reviewing, adjusting, and learning from your goals. Since our focus is accountability and getting the small actions done every week by the time you get to reviewing your goals you’ve been working on them consistently. That always feels good. Most of us don’t review our goals because we fear being disappointed or feel we could have done more. Also, when you hit a goal you usually know it. It’s the ones that take more work that we avoid looking at and that is a shame because there is so much learning to be done.
Reviewing your goals is never a time to feel badly, it’s a time to learn.
We view setting goals as a way to be highly intentional about growing personally and professionally. We don’t expect everything to go right all the time. Reviewing is a time to celebrate the things that went well and to learn as much as you can from the things that didn’t go according to plan.
Think of setting goals as initiating your own experiment and approach reviewing your outcomes with a scientific curiosity.
Also remember, some goals we know how to accomplish. Others we are guessing. It’s the ones where you are guessing that are the most difficult and that you will learn the most from. Someone who sets a goal to workout 5x a week, knows how to do that. It doesn’t mean it’s not challenging it just means its clear what needs to be done. Someone who sets a goal of generating $15,000 a month when they are making $5000 a month has set an outcome based goal rather than an activity based goal so there is uncertainty in what activities will lead to the outcome they desire. We encourage our members to set specific and measurable goals but we do not advise for or against an activity versus an outcome based goal. Both are powerful learning opportunities as one creates habits and the other encourages creativity and problem solving.
Now, I hope that I’ve made a good argument for reviewing your goals and removed some of the internal resistance to doing so. Here are a list of questions I suggest you ask yourself to check in and reset for the next quarter:
1. How did your first quarter of the year go?
Did you set goals? If so, how did it go? If you didn’t set specific goals were there things you wanted to accomplish? Did they happen? The most important thing is that you note what is going well and what needs more attention.
2. If you set goals for 2019 – now is the time to review them.
Remember that 92% of people that set year long goals forget about them after two weeks! If you stay aware of these longer term goals, even if you aren’t specifically working on them in the coming quarter, you will more than likely recognize opportunities that you might otherwise have missed. Let your right brain lead the way on the bigger goals you aren’t working on while the left brain takes on organizing and prioritizing your shorter term action steps.
3. Set your goals for the next quarter.
This part is pretty easy once you’ve done 1 & 2. When you get into a habit of reviewing your goals quarterly you have a heightened understanding of how long a quarter is so you get better and better and setting milestones for yourself. When it comes to quarterly goals our general rule of thumb is no more than 3 goals per quarter. Our members favor a mix of business and personal goals.
Every time I do this exercise I am sincerely surprised at how much I learn. Remember that being accountable is an act of mindfulness so stay aware of your goals and where you are at with them. Bonus points if you mark your calendar now for when you are going to check in with them next. Need help? That’s what we are here for!
