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You need to review 2019 and here’s how…

Before we turn our eyes and expectations to a new year, there’s a place we need to go first. It’s highly underrated but really essential in creating the life and business that you want for yourself.

It’s time to revisit 2019 and review it.

Why?

Because it helps you see what went well and what didn’t.
It reminds you of significant events and the learnings that you have taken away with you. Review is essential in getting an overall picture of what went down in 2019 as this is how you got to where you are right now. And are you happy with where you are right now? Was this where you expected to be?

Reviewing your year in terms of personal and professional events and achievements provides significant insight and wisdom that you need to utilise as you move towards the next year.

There is no better time than now, to review the year before embarking on your path next year. To simplify the process and get you started, I’ve provided review questions for you to consider.

It’s important to take the time to complete this exercise thoroughly, that way you will get the most out of it. So don’t try and squeeze this in before a gym visit and your commute. Set aside a good hour or two of uninterrupted alone time. By the way, alone time also means turning your phone to silent or off completely. Take your time to reflect on each question and record your answers in a notebook or digital resource of your choice.

What were my top 3 accomplishments of 2019?

 Did I achieve the goals I set in my business / professional life this year? Yes/No 

Which goals were/ were not achieved? Why do you think this is the case?
 
What is working well in my business / professional life?

What is not working as well as I’d like in my business / professional life? Why do you think this is the case?

What were my top 3 experiences of 2019? 

What were the 3 most important things that I learnt this year?
 
If I could go back and change things, I would… 

If I could sum up 2019 in 3 words, it would be… 

What I need to do more of next year…Habits or actions I need to DO MORE OF next year:

What I need to do less of next year…Habits or actions I need to DO LESS OF next year:

I think you’ll find that after doing this exercise you will have a better sense of what kind of year you’ve had and what changes you may want to make moving forward. You will know very quickly if you’re on or off track or if your priorities have changed. Take an hour or two this week to complete the review and we’ll continue next week with looking towards the New Year and how we can use the information that you’ve uncovered in this review.

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Where your focus should be for best results

Vision is important. Having the big picture in mind for your business or project is essential. But here’s the caveat: Once you have the big picture, you must break it down into small, manageable pieces.

 Do you have a step by step outline to achieve your big goals?

I ask this because one of the main causes of overwhelm and stress with any project lies in looking at the big picture for far too long. It seems that we like to dwell more on the expected outcome, the end result. We often want to get to that place as fast as we can. But working on a large project or big goal requires another skill set altogether. 

You must step away from the big picture, or adjust your focus so-to-speak. Blur the bigger picture and focus on the step you’re taking right now.

Breaking your project or goal into smaller pieces and working on one piece at a time is how you can actually accomplish big things. It’s in managing the little things, one step at a time, that a power is unleashed. Procrastination and stress are reduced and a whole lot of benefits await you if you can just focus on the one step you are taking right now:

Reduced stress and overwhelm
Imagine standing at the bottom of a mountain and looking at the summit. You’re going to climb the mountain. Do you keep looking at the summit as you climb all the way up? No, of course not. When you look at the summit it’s overwhelming. The scale of the journey is too big for your brain to manage. It will instinctually resist, get stressed and start telling you how hard it is, if not totally impossible. This is why small steps are so important. It makes it more manageable, more consumable for our brains. Consequently it reduces stress and overwhelm about the big climb that is your project or goal. 

Feeling more engaged with the project or goal
If you’re keeping your eye on the end result as you work on your big goal you’re going to be more attached to the end result. The end result is important, but it comes… at the end. While you’re in the middle, be in the middle. This is how engagement is increased. Staying with the step you’re working on increases your concentration and connection to what you’re working on. Feelings of engagement are generated when you stop treating the thing you’re working on as a means to an end, to get to the result. Try it, you will enjoy it. Trust me.

Feeling more in control of large goals and projects
Large goals and projects are exciting… until they’re not. Until you feel overwhelmed, out of control and spiral into an attitude of reluctance. It’s so big you feel like you have no control. That’s why breaking it all down into bite-sized pieces is essential. This is the only way to accomplish big goals. If you thought those people who are achieving big goals were just doing bigger things, then you’re wrong. Quite the opposite thing is happening. If anyone is achieving big goals it’s because they’ve mastered breaking it down into small pieces to keep them feeling in control. Bottomline: the more you feel in control, the more motivated you are to keep going.

Increased quality of work
When you focus on the step you’re taking right now, more care and attention will flow into what you’re working on. The result is a significant increase in the quality of your work. And increased quality also contributes to some of the enjoyment- see the next benefit…

More enjoyable process
An increase in the quality of your output is certainly satisfying. In addition to this and perhaps more significantly, is the enjoyment created in the focused doing. Allowing yourself to focus on one thing brings you into the present moment and helps you move into “flow”. Whether you call it flow, being in the zone or just presence- it’s all the same. When you are fully present with what you’re doing, the process automatically becomes joyful.

Prevents burnout
One of the major causes of burnout is in trying to things all at once. This is what can happen when working on a goal or project without breaking it down into the small steps. In fact, having no plan at all is what usually contributes to burnout because there’s a big effort put on many things all at once with no sequence or defined paramenters. It’s difficult to a) maintain this momentous effort and b) recognise any real progress. Focusing on one step at a time gives you one thing to put your energy into with a clear result or stepping stone being accomplished at the end. You will feel the progress.

It’s more trackable in smaller pieces
As I just mentioned, the small pieces become stepping stones. If the whole goal is broken down into 5 stepping stones, then you know after accomplishing 2 of those then you’re almost half way. This is great for tracking progress, resources and managing your time. When you can track it, you can anticipate all of these things much easier.

Eliminate resistance
A wonderful thing happens when you focus on one step at a time. Your brain relaxes a little. It can see that it can manage the task because it’s a small task and only one single task it has to deal with. The effect of this cannot be underestimated. The resistance you naturally experience when working on a big project or goal- all that procrastination- is overcome just by staying with the one smaller task at a time. When your brain has no resistance, you can easily start working. So it’s goodbye procrastination and hello efficiency. I say yes to that!

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Will you keep, modify or drop?

It’s the second quarter of the year already! Can you believe it? I hope you have had a great start to the year working on your goals. How are they progressing? It’s so important to check in about now and do a quick review of how it is all going.

Why?

So you know how far you’ve progressed with each goal and so you can clearly see what is and is not working. It does not have to take long, but this simple one act can make all the difference! You see, the goal-setting process is actually more flexible than most of us think. Well, it’s a paradox in a way. You have to fully commit and not waver, yet you must be flexible to allow your goals to evolve or change.

If it sounds confusing, stay with me… 

When you set your goals at the beginning of the year, you had to make choices about very specific directions you wanted to go in. Then you made a plan and started to go to work. You have had the end result in mind as you continue to move forward one step at a time.

That commitment and certainty to your goals path still remains important but now you must evaluate how that path is serving your goals. And if those goals are still relevant. A quick way to do this is to ask good questions.

These questions will help you to establish if your goals are still relevant. This is the first step.

For each goal you have, ask yourself:
Is this goal still important to me and my business?Will achieving this goal still have the impact/effect I thought it would when I first set the goal? Or is the outcome likely to be less impactful?

Next, you need to establish if the path you are on with your goals is serving its purpose or needs adjusting. Adjusting your goals path can be necessary for all sorts of reasons. It could be taking longer to progress than you thought. Maybe what you’re doing is not working at all. This is why we need to remain flexible. We must be willing to make changes based on the feedback we get from the review process.

Ask yourself:
Is the time-frame to achieve this goal still realistic?Am I getting good ROI with the actions I am taking? This could be time or monetary investment.Has another way to achieve the goal become apparent?

With your answers you can then decide whether to keep, modify or drop each goal. This review of your goals now, will help you avoid getting to the end of the year (or goal time-frame) and finding that you don’t have the results you wanted or that they have become irrelevant.

I hope you find it helpful in becoming more focused in the pursuit of your goals over the next few months.

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The 5 Most Common Mistakes of Goal Setting

1.You have no action plan
This is by far the most common error when we set goals. The intent is set and we even establish a time-frame, but we don’t create a plan. A plan is just a written step-by-step process to get you to where you want to go. Having a plan greatly increases your chances of achieving your goal. It also prevents overwhelm, stagnation and procrastination because the path is laid out for you and broken into smaller steps. You can approach it one small step at a time. Remember, bite-size pieces is easier for our human brains to deal with, especially when we’re doing something new.
2.The goal is unrealistic
Your goal can be unrealistic for a number of reasons. Usually it arises from expecting that you can do something in a much smaller space of time than is humanly possible. Any perfectionists and high achievers please note
… We are all human and we can only do what we can do. Setting super high standards will not make you better but just set you up for disappointment. The other major reason for unrealistic goal setting is in lack of factoring in the overall context of the goal. Our lives (work, business, personal etc) don’t happen separately or in a vacuum. Your goal is only one part of the whole. It may be an important part but it is still only just one of a few  parts. You need to factor in the context of the goal- your life  and business situation. Are you in the middle of moving, a family crisis, have 3 projects due at the end of the quarter? All of these elements, whether from personal or professional life will impact on the total resources that you can allocate to your goal. Factor in these other things that are “on your plate” to help you better set a more realistic goal.
3.You set it and forget it
Goal setting and achieving is an ongoing process, not a one-time event at the beginning of the year or quarter. The nature of working with goals is organic in the sense that you often need to modify as you go. In other words, flexibility is key. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mean you should create a goal and then “go with the flow”. No, you need a step-by-step plan on how you will achieve it. But then you must remain flexible to modifying it along the path you’re treading. Reviewing is the key to this process, so you need to be looking at your goal plan regularly to stay on track. Often the path to our goal is different than what we planned, so must adjust as required.
4.You don’t really want to achieve the goal
Is it possible that we actually want something we don’t really want? Yes. This is no personal flaw of yours. This can easily happen when we see a bright shiny outcome and from the outside looking in, we think to ourselves that that’s what we really. But having that thing, it turns out, actually involves doing or being certain things that really aren’t our game. An example of this: Having a multi-million dollar business speaking at live events around the country.  From the outside this looks amazing to you. Living your purpose and teaching others while getting to travel is a fantastic idea. Behind this goal are the background mechanics to make this work. You have to be willing to travel, stay in hotels alone, be away from your family and partner/spouse regularly. The idea of spending hours in airports and hotel rooms suddenly hits you and you realise you don’t want that goal after all. And that’s okay. You can however skip the whole process of discovering this after already spending lots of your time on it simply by understanding your values. Knowing your values will help you better decide on the goals that will truly bring you fulfillment.
5.Limiting beliefs stop you
We all have beliefs that we have established and often been unconsciously living by for most of our lives. Our early life has a large influence on how we perceive the world and these “learnings” and ideas end up manifesting as our belief systems about the world and other people. Everyone experiences this and most of us are unaware of most of our beliefs until we come up against a situation that challenges them.  This can be a situation where you feel stuck, unable to make progress or changes that you want. This is where working with a qualified coach can really help. They can help create awareness around the limiting beliefs and help you overcome them. It is difficult for us to see our own blind spots, no matter how aware we are of ourselves. If you find yourself in this situation, I recommend opting in for my FREE Introductory Coaching Session. I can help you create ways to move forward and away from feeling stuck or limited in your choices.

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How to stay on track in 2019

So how are you feeling about your goals for 2019?

Probably pretty damn good, I would expect. Like most of us you’ve likely had a nice break and are now full of energy and enthusiasm for what lies ahead. At this stage, your goals seem exciting and very doable. Sure, they will require discipline and your focused attention, but you’re feeling confident. 

This is the first stage of goal setting. You are confident and energised. You are 100% committed to your goals. This first stage is what I call the fun part of goal setting. It’s the easy part. While your resources are at an all-time high, it’s kind of easy to be 100% committed to your goals. However, it’s in the next stage of goal setting that the challenge really sets in. 

The second stage of goal setting is where it gets harder and where everyone falls off the wagon! I mean everyone! And only some get back on. Think about New Years Resolutions. How many people do you know that make resolutions? How many follow through and get the results they want? Yes, that’s right, not so many!

In this second phase of goal setting the journey gets rough and the resources you had in phase 1 are limited. The enthusiasm and energy you had before at the beginning will not get you through the second phase of achieving your goals.

It’s not a failing on your part. It’s all about the system-or lack of- that sets you up to fail. We are all humans and we all struggle with similar things when it comes to achieving goals or resolutions. We seem to think if we decide to do something different, that’s enough. 

To get through phase 2 of goal achievement and making it to the promised land (realising your goal) you’re going to need some tools! If everyone falls off and only some get back on track, then what are those“some people” doing differently than the rest?

They have a system to get them back on track ASAP! You see it’s not a short sprint, but more of a journey of consistency. To stay consistent, you need a system that keeps you… consistent. The best and easiest way to do this is to implement a tracking system. 
Your goals require you to do certain things regularly, to modify your behaviours.  You need to define the behaviours you need to change or implement. Then, put them into a tracking system. Then you check it daily and review and re-set it each week.

I’ve created you a personal Tracking Tool to get you started, so click here to download!

It’s simple but profoundly effective. It only takes a few  minutes a day but will deliver huge amounts of value as you move further through the year. A personal tracking table will help you to: 
👍 see what your actual results are
👍 monitor what is/isn’t working
👍 indicate to you immediately when you have fallen off track
👍 and help you get back on track quickly

This is a simple and easy solution that will deliver you big results. I use it myself to help keep my core behaviours on-track. It’s easily one of the best tools I’ve ever implemented and I know it will help you to achieve what you want for 2019!
Click here to download the personal tracking tool.