Using Yearly Goals to Live the Life You Desire – (Part III)

by

by Rob Leachman

From the “Leading a Goal-Driven Life” Series

-Part III-

This Series

While I find their philosophy of life fascinating, and though there are occasions when such an approach seems less stressful and attractive, I have never understood the carefree approach to their future that some seem to follow. These good, adventurous folks seem to progress through their years with no clear destination and few defined plans. It’s as if they are allowing life to happen to them rather than by them or for them. Their conscious plan for life is seemingly to have no plan at all. Though each of our lives is pocked with potholes and other unanticipated challenges, I prefer to have as much control as possible over where I’m headed and what I hope to accomplish. To the degree possible, I want to try to work toward what I desire out of life rather than simply rely on what “fate” sends my way.

As a result, this past January, I completed a ritual I have dutifully followed for more than three decades—I established my goals for the coming year.

Many years ago, as a high school history and government teacher, I didn’t approach classroom lessons with the notion that I would simply discuss with my students whatever came to mind when the bell rang. For each course I taught, I had well-defined goals (called “objectives” in educational parlance) that I wanted (and needed) to accomplish with my students by the end of the course. Though I also had objectives for each lesson (similar to the “daily goals” I establish as part of the “goal-driven life” process), these course objectives are the instructional version of the yearly goals I am describing. Without teaching toward student mastery of these course objectives, and if I simply approached class instruction in a haphazard manner, discussing what I or my students wanted to talk about on any given day, there’s a good chance that not much course-related learning would take place.

So it is with life, at least from my perspective. Without a sense of direction, the path I have identified based on my own desires and ambition, I fear I would amble aimlessly through life. I would hope to find what I’m looking for, but that would seem particularly daunting given that I would largely not even know what I was looking for. Like a road map or GPS provides a route to the destination we want to reach, for me in life, that road map comes from the goal-setting process I have followed for many years.

Self-improvement guru Tony Robbins refers to goal-setting as “the fundamental key to success.” As he continues, “If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, you can’t create a plan to get there. Setting goals is the vehicle that will drive you to your destination.”

Simplistically explained, like daily goals help me to identify what I hope to accomplish each day, yearly goals broaden that process to provide similar direction for a longer period. It’s a reflective and fully self-directed process that allows me to establish where I want to go and what I want to accomplish in the coming year.

Yearly Goal-Setting Process

The process I utilize for setting goals for the upcoming year is simple but one that I have found to be very powerful. Now that I have completed this process for many years, the first step actually coincides with my final review of progress toward the goals established for the year that is just concluding, At the end of a calendar year, typically in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I take some time to review which goals were met, which were not met or were partially met, and most importantly for the goal-setting process, which are worthy of continuing into the new year. I make a mental note of those areas I believe need to be considered for inclusion in the yearly goal list for the coming year.

In the final days of the past year and the initial days of the new one, I begin to reflect on areas I want to address in the coming year. These reflections don’t represent a formal process, but rather occur as I’m driving alone, exercising, or during other private moments. Of importance is the notion that this is a fluid, organic process that naturally evolves rather than one that is completed in a single defined session.

Then typically shortly after the new year begins, I block out some alone time to reflect on and formally identify my goals for the coming year. When I was much younger and our children were still at home, I would try to get away for an hour or two to complete this task. As I was a school administrator at the time and schools were not in session due to the holiday break, I sometimes simply went to my office where I could be assured of some uninterrupted time. On a few occasions, I went to a diner we often frequented where I knew I would not be bothered. Now as a largely retired individual, I typically just block out some time and head to my office where I know I can have an hour or so of uninterrupted time. Whatever the setting, the key is to complete this process in isolation, and because it is one of the most important tasks you will complete in any given year, the setting needs to be fairly quiet and you need to not be interrupted.

By this time, I will have completed my review of the prior year’s goals and have a sense of those that I did not complete but that I want to continue into the next year. On a pad of paper, I begin to jot down areas I might want to address in the next twelve months, realizing that the process is still in the formative stage. It’s a bit more than brainstorming at this point, but including a goal on this preliminary list doesn’t mean it will make the cut for the final version. But some goals lend themselves to inclusion on the yearly goal list. As a personal example, when I was a runner, I always included a goal related to the number of miles I hoped to run in the coming year; I now include a mileage goal related to walking/hiking and another related to biking.

Identifying “Aspirational” or “Stretch” Goals

But while important, those recurring goals don’t serve as the “meat” of the process. That comes from the identification of new areas, or areas that have frustrated us for some time, but goals that push us beyond what we’ve accomplished in the past and onto new levels of achievement. As I described above, I always included a goal related to running mileage, but what really pushed me was establishing a goal of completing a marathon, a binary goal that I would either reach or not reach. (I did but might not have had I not included it as a yearly goal.)

Identification of these “aspirational” or “stretch” goals requires deep and honest reflection regarding what we want to achieve in life, what has frustrated us in the past because we have not been successful in addressing a particular area, what activity or accomplishment would bring us great satisfaction and joy, etc. Finding these areas can be challenging, can make us uncomfortable at times, but can literally change the trajectory of our lives. To assist this identification process, candid self-reflection on the following questions can be very helpful and insightful:

  • What do you hope to be doing (in your personal and professional life) in five years? What can/should you do this year to move toward attaining that longer-range goal? (If you have established a list of life goals, it would be appropriate to review that list at this time.)
  • Are there activities the completion of which would provide you with significant satisfaction and/or great joy?
  • What is something you have wanted to achieve for some time but have been frustrated that you have not been able to do so? Is this area something worthy of your time, effort, and focus?
  • What steps are needed to maintain or advance your career?
  • What is something you would like to accomplish that would benefit the broader world?
  • What do you need to do to maintain or improve your health?
  • What activities or accomplishments would enhance your personal and family life?

These are simply examples of questions that might help to guide you through this goal-setting process. As you ponder these or other questions, jot down possible goals you might want to work on during the upcoming year. This can be a free-wheeling stage of this process, so no possible goal is too outrageous. In fact, some of those more outrageous goals can lead us to our most significant accomplishments, taking us beyond what we thought was possible. I would suggest striving for a combination of what we might call “practical” goals and “aspirational” goals. The goal-setting process should push us, and as a result, particularly if at least some of the identified goals are bold, don’t fret if, at the end of the year, not all have been met.

Categorizing Goals

Once this brainstorming process has been exhausted, it’s time to categorize goals and determine the most essential ones to be included in each category. While it is certainly feasible and effective to simply develop a singular list of goals, I have found it helpful to identify the important categories of goals I want to address in the coming year. Some goal-setting experts suggest that goals be identified in such categories as career goals, health goals, finance goals, family and relationship goals, spiritual goals, etc. As I wanted this process to be as simple as possible, during my working years, I divided my yearly goals into those that were “personal” and “professional.” Examples of personal goals might include reaching a particular weight, becoming more involved in church activities, or becoming conversant in a foreign language. Financial goals might include paying off a mortgage or increasing savings to a certain monthly amount. Fitness-related goals might include running five miles without stopping or going to the gym an average of twice each week. Family or relationship goals might include spending more time with each of your children or implementing a weekly date night with your spouse or partner. The list is truly endless and will be highly geared toward your own desires and needs.

Professional goals are similarly individualized and based largely on the career field in which you are employed or hope to be employed. As an example, if you are wanting or needing to add a degree or certification that is related to your work, including it as a goal could provide the needed nudge to get such an endorsement or program completed. Many job-related projects are mandated by your employer and as such the “nudge” is already present. But in my work life, there were always programs or practices, sometimes rather cutting edge, that I wanted to implement but didn’t necessarily need to as a job requirement. Including the implementation of such programs or practices as yearly goals often led to their successful execution. Professional goals might include those of a more personal nature, such as updating your professional portfolio or resume or more explicitly securing a new position. Though this will vary from person to person, and likely among different professions, I always ended up with significantly more “personal” goals than “professional” ones.

An Appropriate Number of Yearly Goals

Once you have completed the brainstorming of possible goals, it’s time to cull the list to a manageable number. Unless there is a more limited number of areas that require your significant focus for an entire year, too few goals will likely represent an insufficient amount of challenge. Conversely, and in my mind of greater importance, the common trap of setting too many goals will dilute your focus and effort, meaning you end up accomplishing much less for the year. Though this will vary by individual, I have always found that a total of ten to fifteen yearly goals, divided between personal and professional or whatever other categories you decide to utilize, is an effective number.

As you evaluate each of the draft goals you have written, consider each based on the following informal criteria:

  • Is the goal clearly written and understandable?
  • Is it important enough to warrant your focused efforts during the coming year?
  • Is it realistic and achievable (though it may also be aspirational, meaning it may push you beyond your comfort level and typical levels of effort)?
  • Will attainment of the goal enhance your enjoyment and effectiveness in your personal and/or professional life?
  • Does the goal represent an activity you really need to complete? If not, does it represent something that would truly excite you to complete? (A worthy goal should fit into at least one of these categories.)

Particularly if you are struggling to delineate your yearly goals, or more commonly if you are trying to reduce the number of goals to a more manageable number, questions like these can help guide the process.

Once you have identified the appropriate number of goals for the coming year, read through each goal to ensure that it is clearly written and provides sufficient specificity to allow you to make a determination at the end of the year regarding whether or not the goal has been met. Goals such as “gain acceptance into a master’s degree program” or “complete a 100-mile bike ride” are simple but very clearly written, and their binary nature allows an easy determination of completion at the end of the year; you either did or you didn’t complete what the goal prescribed. A goal such as “make significant progress toward securing a new job” is more ambiguous and is perhaps open to interpretation but can still represent a worthy goal; assuming you are honest with yourself, you know whether you made “significant progress” or not. With your goals all clearly written and of a number that is reasonable and manageable, divide them into whatever categories you decide to utilize.

Similarly, once you have finalized your list of yearly goals, it’s time to transcribe them into a format that you can conveniently access. I originally stored my list of yearly goals in the same planner binder in which I wrote and maintained my daily goal list. Now, with more technologically advanced options available, I write the goals as a digital document in an iPad app called “Day One;” really, any program that allows for word processing can work. Keep in mind that the list of yearly goals should be considered a fluid, working document through the end of the coming year. Goals can be added, deleted, or altered at any time as life and career circumstances change. I would emphasize that “change in circumstances” doesn’t, in my opinion, encompass goals that are as worthy later in the year as they were when originally written, but that you may want to eliminate simply because they won’t be completed. But, again, circumstances do change. As an example, suppose you included as a yearly goal something related to “find a new job.” Then, midway through the year, you receive a significant pay raise from your current employer, thus in your mind negating the need for a new position. This would represent a valid reason for deleting a goal. Or of a more negative nature, suppose you have included as a goal “completing a marathon,” then you broke a leg or contracted a major illness, either of which would make the completion of this goal impossible. If you are so inclined, this would represent a change in circumstances that would justify the deletion of a goal (though keeping the goal might provide motivation for the following year). Finally, imagine that partway through the year you begin a writing process that leads you to want to expand that project into a book. This would represent a good reason to add a writing-related goal to your yearly list. Whether or how you process additions, deletions, and alterations to your list of goals is a personal issue.

It’s also a matter of personal preference whether you want to make your list of yearly goals a public document, meaning something that you share with other people. Some may advocate posting your goals on your office wall, on your refrigerator, or in some other open manner. The reasoning suggests that publicly sharing your list of yearly goals will make you more accountable for reaching those goals, and thus more prone to be successful. I have never followed that practice, preferring to keep my goals private and relying on the intrinsic motivation I could derive from the goal-setting process to assist me in accomplishing what I hoped to for the year. My advice would be to avoid sharing your goals unless you believe you will benefit from doing so. And then, I would suggest that if you are going to share your goals, do so with only a close set of friends, family, and advisors.

Numerous goal-setting and time management systems call for taking each yearly goal and attaching to it detailed interim goals, action plans, timelines, evaluative criteria, etc. to further facilitate achievement in each major area you have identified. While this is all well and good, when I began utilizing this process, I was seeking something simple and not overly time-consuming. I determined these “add-on” strategies would simply complicate matters, requiring more time than I had available and actions that would weigh me down rather than promote greater achievement. As with the setting of daily goals, I was seeking simplicity, and the act of establishing and then periodically reviewing yearly goals provided adequate motivation and direction

Clearly, though, some of the goals you establish may be complex and require multiple steps to complete. As an example, if you establish a yearly goal such as “begin a graduate degree program,” there are numerous steps that must be completed before you begin taking classes. You need to research programs, possibly take the Graduate Record Examination, complete and submit an application to the university, possibly secure a student loan, and on and on. While many could likely keep track of this sequence of tasks “in their heads,” others might benefit from developing a sequence document or flow chart. While doing so can be beneficial as needed, I would advise that you not make that a part of the goal-setting process for each goal. Setting the goal to start a graduate degree program is what spurred you to action; how you get there simply represents supportive details.

The key here is to complete this very personal process in a manner that works for you, and that guides you to higher levels of achievement. No one but you is going to evaluate how your goals are written, if you have too many or not enough, or whether or not you have reached them by the end of the year. This entire process is completed by you and for you, and as such must work to the advantage of your personal life and professional career.

Regular Review of Yearly Goals

Setting goals that are not regularly revisited and reviewed is largely a waste of time. To this day, I review my yearly goals several times each year to remind me of what I hope to accomplish as well as to provide an opportunity to informally assess what sort of incremental progress I have made.

For an individual who is new to this process, to establish an effective routine, I would suggest that on the first day of each month, you complete a regular review of your yearly goals. To do this, read each goal and briefly consider what progress, if any, you have made toward completion of the goal, what you should be doing relative to the goal, and whether the goal needs to be edited or deleted. This is an informal, but very reflective, activity, and should seldom require more than a few minutes.

As the end of the year approaches, you will complete your final yearly goal review. Though I would advise that this activity be completed separately from when you establish goals for the coming year, the two activities are clearly related and this goal review should be a similarly reflective process.

To be effective, this activity requires honesty and personal accountability; you are evaluating yourself for yourself, and for no other audience. In a private, uninterrupted setting, consider each goal for the year that is just ending. After each goal, based on your candid assessment, write “Completed,” “Not Completed,” or “Partially Completed.” If your performance in completing a goal was particularly strong or represented a long-standing aspiration and very challenging accomplishment, you might consider writing something like “Completed +++” or “Completed!!!.” Goals that are marked as “Not Completed” are often those toward which you didn’t make any effort, or at least no more than a minimal attempt. Goals that are marked as “Partially Completed” represent areas that you attempted to complete, made some significant progress toward completing, but simply came up short or ran out of time. For these, you might want to add a notation detailing the progress you were able to make. As an example, suppose you included as a yearly goal something along the lines of biking 2,000 miles. Also imagine that for you, this represented an aspirational goal that would significantly push you beyond previous levels of achievement. You pushed hard and made a strong effort but came up just short. By this goal, you could obviously write “Not Completed,” as this is a binary goal that you either reach or don’t reach. But under the circumstances, you might classify this goal as “Partially Completed (1,934 miles),” adding a notation signifying how close you came to actually reaching the number of miles toward which you were striving.

As you review and evaluate your progress for each goal, for those that were not fully completed, consider whether you want to include any of them in your list of goals for the coming year. With that, you have started the cycle all over.

I have kept copies of almost all of my yearly goal lists for the past thirty years, some written on paper and more recently maintained electronically. Reviewing them spurs many memories, most good and some less so. But regardless, those lists of goals represent a road map of my life over the past three decades. Virtually every accomplishment of significance that I have experienced had its genesis in or at least was supported by one of those lists of yearly goals. Completing a doctoral degree program, working in a school district-level administrative position, teaching at the collegiate level, completing a marathon, reducing my weight to a healthier level, increasing savings, and on and on. Each of these areas has been critical to any success I have experienced in life. Would I have reached the same level of achievement in any of these areas had I not utilized this goal-setting process? Maybe. Would I have been successful in all, or even many, of these areas without utilizing this process? Most assuredly not. Of perhaps even greater importance, would I have been able to guide my life in directions I desired without some process of reflective goal setting? I can’t imagine that I would. In my mind, devoting to this process an hour at the beginning and end of each year and a few minutes of review scattered periodically has been incredibly impactful in my life. To me, this very simple process has been literally life-altering.

References

Covey, Stephen R., 1989, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, New York: Simon & Schuster

Reaching Self, 2020, How to Set Yearly Goals: The Ultimate Goal Setting Guide for 2021, downloaded from reachingself.com

Robbins, Tony, 2018, Tony Robbins’Secrets for Effective Goal Setting, Success Magazine, December 4, 2018

Robbins, Tony, How Can I Set Compelling Goals? downloaded from www.tonyrobbins.com/ask-tony

Tracy, Brian, 2017, Eat That Frog!, Oakland, California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Copyright 2022 by Rob Leachman – All Rights Reserved

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