How to Build a SYSTEM for GOAL SETTING when you’ve struggled before
Watch the related video on YouTube! Click the image above.
You don’t need a purchased, coiled goal planner with pages and boxes to fill in to achieve your goals. You need a simple, flexible SYSTEM that you can MOLD to your unique life, that helps you make progress amidst the things that come at you day to day (other people’s priorities, illness, even weather). I’m going to tell you what THAT kind of system needs so it can help you get the results you want.
We’ll cover how to start, what to build in, and how to tweak the system.
Start Small
Build in Flexibility and Reflection
Iterate, Don’t Obliterate
START SMALL- SIMPLE - small goal/small habits
If you’re like me, you enjoy the PROCESS of goal setting. You want ALL THE GOALS. BIG GOALS. And when you’re told to have fewer goals or to scale your goals back, you feel like you’ll never actually reach them. So you go for it and set big goals. And maybe too many goals.
How’s that worked for you? Sometimes it’s worked fine for me. But often not.
I’m inclined to go with James Clear in Atomic Habits. If you are 1% better each day, within a year you’re 37 times better. Progress of any kind is very welcomed!
So if you’ve struggled with the big goals, try smaller. Try with habits and only a few at a time at that. If you start with a bunch of new habits and some don’t work out, don’t beat yourself up. Be willing to pare down the number you work on at once. Progress is progress.
START SMALL-TIME - short timeframe
We usually buy planners that are ANNUAL planners. I have tried SO many times to do a yearly tracker…They look so cool!
But as I’ve struggled to adapt to my current ‘season of life’, I’m finding that even quarterly goal setting or a 12 Week Year is too long for me.
But here I’m advocating for starting with the habits that underlie your goals. Start with working on each habit for a week or two and decide if you’re ready to add another. I’ve been making my sheet that is a WEEKLY habit tracker and has my routines on it recently. I find each week there’s something I want to add or delete.
And I’m setting my goals in 2 month ‘seasons’, rather than quarters. (The next post and video are all about that…my flavor of Periodization.)
BUILD IN FLEXIBILITY
Think about what kind of kind of things have thrown you off track in the past and PRE-PLAN what to do when they inevitably come up again.
A couple examples for specific habits:
For a healthy eating goal, maybe it’s social engagements that are an issue. Determine if you’re going to eat before going, pre-plan what to order if you’re going to a restaurant, or offer to bring something acceptable to your plan to a potluck.
For a reading goal, maybe it’s your phone that distracts you from reading. Figure out what time of day and how you’re going to deal with it. Are you going to set restrictions on your phone? Leave it in another room or across the room in Do Not Disturb mode?
What about when your day blows up?
You’ve planned out your day beautifully. Then someone else’s priorities get in the way of your plan. If some things come up regularly, make an if/then list to figure out what you’ll do to combat them.
Or if you have to drop some of your own things, how will you decide?
I recommend some kind of prioritization when you’re planning your day. Need-To’s and Nice-To’s or another kind of prioritizing. The Full Focus Planner has a Weekly Big 3 and a Daily Big 3. So when something’s got to go, if you’ve already said that THESE things were your priority, then it’s easier to stick to those and let the other tasks you THOUGHT you’d have time for wait for another day.
BUILD IN REFLECTION
I am a BIG advocate for a Weekly Reset. Some intentional time weekly where you reflect on your previous week, look at your goals and any other parts of your life that need attention and plan your upcoming week.
Your goals and habits should get attention like this at LEAST weekly. Maybe more times throughout the week but don’t shoot for daily. If you shoot for daily and you miss, it’s just more cause to beat yourself up. You don’t need that. This is why I recommend something UNDATED for this kind of reflection.
And personally I find that paper is better for reflecting. It can be within your planner or productivity system in some way or in a separate journal.
ITERATE - DON’T OBLITERATE
You will not be perfect. Do not go into this thinking 100% or nothing. During your weekly reflection, be gentle and honest with yourself. The Weekly Reset in the Full Focus Planner is called the Weekly Preview. I use the questions from there as a jumping off point. They’re common to many goal setting systems:
What worked? What didn’t? What will you start or stop?
Some goal setting systems advocate scoring yourself. I’ve tried, it isn’t for me. It shuts me down. At least recently. It worked for me in the past, but not now.
And that’s a key point. Just because something worked for you for one goal at one point in your life doesn’t mean it’ll work always. What worked for me 5 years ago doesn’t work for me now. And also, just because something works for ME doesn’t mean it’ll work for YOU.
The point is you have to be thoughtful, reflect, and iterate. Don’t just loop back up to get a fresh start. Trouble shoot. Push through.
The next thing I addressed was the ‘shorter timeframe’ part of things. Check out that post and video next.
Why I’ve Stopped Goal Setting Quarterly