Setting Goals, Planning, Executing, Tracking & Reviewing are Processes necessary for Success!
A Brand New Year and a Brand New Moment to Organize ourselves. As the New Year approached, I was faced with a question that I asked myself? How am I going to be any different than I was earlier? What new would I do to improve the quality of my life and improve my business prospects?
I started the practice of creating Yearly Goals a couple of Years ago. So I read my last years goal and starting reviewing what did I achieve.
Not expecting much here, to my surprise, I was able to accomplish a lot. There were a lot of misses but yes, there were pleasant surprises too. I ran the 10K marathon, the first ever in my life. I also started a blog. In fact I completed atleast 1 goal in all major areas of life i.e. Body, Mind, Soul, Career, Family, Society, Relationship.
Having made a great deal of progress, I decided to increase the challenge and incorporate a few more things which will improve this process.
How about increasing the frequency of this joy of accomplishment? Can I plan for Every Quarter or Every Month? Can I review Every Quarter or Every Month and find how many accomplishments did I achieve?
Given below is my way of creating Goals and tracking them.
Set A Goal
The process of planning a year should Ideally start with Setting up a goal. My goal came from my long term intent which in turn comes from my Vision.
My Vision is to be Physically Fit and Mentally Alert and my Long term intent is to have an HbA1C < 5. On the basis of these two, I have set a goal of HbA1C < 6.
On the 1st of January, 2021 at ILEAD Session, Shyam Sir explained that Vision should be such that you should say “This is impossible”. Vision should also be small as a statement (ideally single line or two line) and should not be bound by numbers or date.
After Vision, you must formulate your Intent which is usually 5 – 10 – 15 years in the future. This would have long term intent related to your vision along with a probable year of accomplishment.
After you are through with your Long Term Intent, break it down to a number which you will achieve this year. For example, I intend to do 30 minutes of Meditation practice sometime in 5 years time. A year ago, I could hardly do 20 secs. This year, I can do 6 min without losing focus on concentration. A fair goal for me would be to double this to 15 min in 1 year. A bit stretched and difficult for me but looks doable.
Set Milestones
After I have set the Yearly goals for myself. I must break this down to Quarterly or better, Monthly goals. Of course, there could be slippages, but it is good since that would give me an idea of the mistakes that I commit.
So if 15 min. of Meditation practice is my Yearly Goal, I can break this down to 4 differently Quarterly goals. Q4 would obviously be 15 min. while Q3 could be 12 min and Q2 could be 10 min. Since Q1 would cover Jan – March of 2021, I will have to ensure that by 31st March 2021 (i.e. Q1), I will be able to do atleast 8 min of Meditation Practice.
Doing 15 min of Meditation Practice would be my main Goal. However, there would be a lot of small tasks that should be achieved in order to get to my main Goal. For 15 min Meditation Practice, some of them were:
- Choosing Time (You could start morning or evening and try which time suits you)
- Choosing Place (You could sit on a chair or try the padmasana position to ensure you are comfortable to sit in the same place for at least 15 min)
- Choosing the type of Meditation Practice (You can see if a guided meditation app such as Headspace)
If this would have been Sales Turnover Goal, some milestones could be training of sales staff, per sales staff per month turnover increase etc.
You can set these activities as Tasks under the Goal of 15 min. of Meditation Practice. As soon as the Activities are accomplished, it will reflect in your Milestones achieved.
Now the query is, how to ensure we are on track. For this, you must take the help of a Track-sheet. Unnati Unlimited gives out beautiful Track-sheet in the form of Cards that you can fill on a daily basis. I have already mentioned about the importance of Tracksheet in one of my earlier posts which you can find it here.
Track your Activities
So once you have broken down your strategy into activities, you can track your activities to find if it is working. For eg. if you are aiming for converting 5 new prospects every month, your activities could be to call 10 leads everyday and meet 5 prospects every day. At the end of the month, you can review your activities and decide if these activities really made sense. If it didnt, you know that this strategy does not work and that you need to try a new strategy.
By using a Tracksheet, you can divide your activities and track them on a daily basis. Once, you have achieved a milestone, say losing 2 kg in a month, by Running for 30 min, you know that this strategy works for you. You can add similar activities (cardio exercises) which might improve your goal achievement.
Tracking is a very important part of the Planning process and it must be included while aiming for a goal. But along with Tracking what is also important is regular review of your goals.
Review Progress
Let us assume a scenario where you had kept a goal for yourself at 80 kg while you are at 90 kg. I believe this to be a stretch goal and worth a try. If all your strategies work perfectly fine, you might be able to achieve much earlier. What do you do then?
Review helps us assess if we are going in the right direction and if there is any need for course correction.
Not only in a situation where you can achieve your goals early but also where you might find it difficult to come close. Here, a monthly review or quarterly review would assist you in improving strategy or worse alter the goal for the year.
End Note
This simple process of Setting Goals, Setting Milestones, Track Activities, and Review Progress helps you to plan the achievement of your goals. Of course, there are a lot of items that must be considered such as Resources required (Time, Effort, Money), Possible Threats.
I do hope that this article would have given you an idea of how I plan my year. If you have any queries, please connect with us on facebook, linkedin or twitter.
Wishing you all a Very Happy and Successful New Year 2021!
~RG~