Happy New Year! As you may recall, 13 months ago I made a decision to try something new. I decided NOT to make any new year’s resolutions, but rather, set some goals for myself for 2020 in a few areas of my life.
I set physical goals, professional goals and personal goals. I did not write these in pencil. I wrote them in pen. I was serious. But, I was also a bit nervous about the whole process.
After all, when you put something in writing, and share it with others, it is a commitment.
The first time I did this was when I decided to go vegan about eight years ago. I committed publicly (via this blog) that I would become vegan for 30 days to see what it was like, and how I felt. My reasoning was that I could do ANYTHING for 30 days. An interesting thing happened—by putting my goal in writing, and making the commitment to others, it was like I flipped a switch in my brain. All those obstacles and temptations seemed to disappear, and becoming vegan seemed achievable.
Well, the same thing happened for me in 2020. But the big difference for me this time was that I had a partner for the journey. We didn’t have the same exact goals, but we were both focused on our fitness and health. My partner (Jack Daly), happens to be one of the most goal-oriented, driven and determined people I’ve ever met. I first met Jack more than 20 years ago when he spoke to my CEO group. In the ensuing 20 years, I invited Jack to speak at my company multiple times about sales and sales management. I recall him talking about goal setting, tracking your goals and setting your sights high. Never in a million years did I think life would take a few turns and we would end up in a relationship and living together.
So, I am proud and excited to share what my goals were this past year and what I accomplished. I learned from Jack that one of the additional benefits of sharing this information is that it can motivate other people to step up their game.
*bold=goal achieved/exceeded
(If you think I’m crazy, then click [here] to see Jack’s 2020 goals and achievements)
So what were my top three learnings?
- Be specific with your goals and figure out the best tracking metric with the outcome in mind (i.e. knowing I had to get up at 5 a.m. in the morning meant I had to figure out that I needed to be headed to bed by 9 p.m. in order to get more than 7.5 hours of sleep each night).
- Importance of balance in the goals kept me balanced as a person (by having personal and family goals, along with fitness goals gave me a sense of a “win” in some areas, even if I was missing in others).
- The tracking system made all the difference in the world. The discipline of writing everything down, and tallying each month, kept me moving forward. And it was a gentle reminder of what I set out to do.
So what are you going to do in 2021? Have you thought about writing down some specific, measurable goals for yourself? Have you chosen an accountability partner or two who you can share your wins or losses with?
As you can imagine, after one year of following this process, I can see how the specificity of what I did can help me get things done. Is it a surprise that I have added a few new items to my list for 2021?
- I made a list of my closest friends, and have set goals for how often I want to touch base with them during the year.
- I’ve added a few of the items off my bucket list to my goals for 2021.
- I have pre-vaccination and post-vaccination goal categories (mostly for traveling and socializing).
- Number of rounds of golf I plan to play and number of times a month I will do yoga.
I invite you to join me on this journey and feel free to share YOUR goals with me!
Cheers to a fantastic 2021!
Karen
