With Christa, the Christmas Elf with a Plan – 19 December
Christa’s End of the Year Tip for today is no surprise – set new goals. It seems her goal is to decorate that Norfolk Pine. She may have run into an obstacle – there’s no obvious place for that star.
Setting new goals is something I’m sure we’ve all been thinking about lately. Setting goals is easy. Achieving them is the hard part. We need to set goals that will move us in the direction we wish to go and in alignment with our values and priorities. Our goals need to be reasonable but also challenging.
Before I get into how to set new goals – if you have just arrived at Christa’s End of the Year Planning Tip count-up to Christmas, no worries. If you want to start at the beginning, you’ll find Tip #1 here.
Setting New Goals
Many of us set goals every year that we work toward. Sometimes we achieve them, other times we don’t. Obstacles and unexpected changes in our lives may be responsible if we fail or fall behind with our goals. But often, we are the obstacle or reason we didn’t complete a goal. We may be sabotaging our own progress because we aren’t fully committed to the goal. If we can choose goals that are truly important to us, we will be more committed to them and motivated to achieve them.
My goal planning is different than the process that many goal planning and tracking planner pages imply. I worked for several years in Continuous Process Improvement. I completed training myself and trained others in the methodologies used to assist teams to improve their processes. We worked with teams to improve their processes but reducing costs, reducing the schedule and/or improving the quality of their product. Examples of products include widgets (manufactured items), computer applications, documents/knowledge/research, or performing a medical imaging procedure on a patient. To identify and implement improvements, we documented the Current State, designed an Ideal State and planned the Future State.
Current State
The first step is to document the current process. This is done by mapping out every individual step of the current process in a large flowchart with Post-it notes on a wall. This detailed examination makes visible redundant or unnecessary steps that add no value to the final product. It also helps to identify the steps in the process where defects may occur and reduce product quality improvements. This is called the Current State.
Our Current State is defined by the person we are today. Our current state includes our skills, knowledge and experience; our physical, mental and emotional conditions; our habits and routines; our strengths and weaknesses; our relationships – both close and at-large; and our perceived quality-of-life. Much of what makes up our state-of-being can only be measured in qualitative terms. However, there are quantitative measures, such as job position and salary, which can be tied directly to our current state as a person. For example, our skills, knowledge and experience likely impact what job position we hold and our salary. And our job position and salary impact our quality of life.
Ideal State
Once the Current State was documented and assessed, the team had to imagine they could remove any obstacles to streamlining their process. If they could simply remove all the non-value adding steps and implement the latest, most innovative technologies with no concern for cost. Then they documented that process. This process is the Ideal State.
Our personal Ideal State is the person we hope to be in the distant future. Maybe it makes more sense to say the person we want to be in our golden years. I think of it as the legacy I’d like to leave. Have you ever read one of those obituaries or memorials that describe the deceased’s life in great detail? I’m talking about the ones that list all their accomplishments, adventures, and why they were so amazing to know in life. If someone wrote one of those about you, what would you want it to say? And just like I mentioned with the Current State, there are those things that may be necessary to enable you to live in your Ideal State, (i.e. salary, pension, savings).
I refer to the Ideal State as my long-term goal. It is a singular goal described in mostly qualitative terms. It serves as magnetic pole for my life compass. If I put one of my yearly goals beside my life compass, it should tell me if I am moving in the right direction.
Future State
The last state we would help the team to define was a Future State. The Future State process took into account all the changes that could be made within a short period of time that would result at least some of the desired improvements (cost/schedule/quality). A new process was documented to be put in place as quickly as the changes could be made. Usually there were some changes identified that could result in more significant improvements but required some level of approval or funding to implement. Those changes would be documented as Future Actions for a follow-up process improvement event.
In goal setting, I think of the Future State as my yearly goals. Having near-term goals that are 3-5 years out sets deadlines that are close enough to keep you motivated. Your long-range goal may be so far away as to seem like you have forever. This makes it easier to put things off and fall behind. Near-term goals can help by maintaining a sense of urgency.
Goal Planning Worksheet
If you have pages in your planner for goal planning, you can use those. If not, you can map your goals out on notes pages or use the goal planning pages available on the free downloads page. I like to work on extra copies or notes pages. I try to find the right words to motivate myself and ensure I have included the measures for progress and accountability. So I edit up doing a fair bit of editing before I am satisfied with my choices. Once I have it all worked out, I write them on the pages in my planner.
You will find the following printables in both US Letter (8 ½” x 11”) and Classic (7” x 9 ¼”) sizes:
- Goal Planning Worksheet – (2 pages, duplex) – Used for documenting the long-range, near-term and yearly goals. The back is dot grid so if you need more space than the front of the page allows, you can use the back.
- Goal Worksheet – (2 pages, duplex) – Used to fully plan for each of the yearly goals, one copy per goal. It provides space for developing interim goals, documenting plans for dealing with potential obstacles (risk mitigation) and developing an action plan.
- Project Planning Worksheet – (4 pages, duplex) – Used to document projects. I’ll come back to projects later.
Start With Your Long-Term Goal
Remember this is goal in the singular, rather than goals in the plural. This is your long-range goal for your life, your Ideal State. Like all goals, it should be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Realistic/Relevant, and Timely/Timebound.
- Specific – Describe your long-term Goal in terms of what your life is like personally, professionally, financially, etc., being as Specific as you can.
- Measurable – This can be in qualitative terms – i.e. financially secure years in the future, might be hard to put a number to, but you can describe what that would mean to you.
- Achievable/Attainable – This means that it is something you can, with the necessary effort, achieve and is not dependent on luck (i.e. winning the lottery).
- Realistic/Relevant – It should be something you truly want, not what you think you are expected to want and be consistent with your beliefs and values.
- Timely/Time Bound – And while setting a deadline for a short-term goal is necessary, using a less specific time such as “before I retire,” is okay. However, if you are reaching retirement age in the next 10 years, you might have a deadline.
The first time you do this is the hardest. After that, you are just tweaking and refining it as you grow as a person and collect new experiences in life. Take your time with this. Make sure that your statements capture your vision. And that if you imagine yourself achieving the goal and living that life, you feel content.
Identify Your 5-Year Goals
The next step is to determine your 5-year goals. These are interim milestones (or deadlines) on the path to your long-term goal. Make them aggressive, as if your time until you desire to have achieved your long-term goal is shorter than you expect it will actually be. You want to be head of schedule in case obstacles arise and delay your progress somewhere in the future as you continue on your planned path.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What are the most significant differences between your Current State and your Ideal State?
- What are the things you need to accomplish to reduce or eliminate these differences?
- Which of these do you need to complete within the next 5 years?
The answers lead to your 5-year goals. These goals should also be SMART goals, following the descriptions above. Your 5-year goals should be measurable quantitatively and deadlines should be set.
Define Your Yearly Goals
Now that you have 5-year goals, it’s time to identify your goals for the next year. Review your 5-year goals and begin to prioritize them. Consider if there are goals that must be completed before work toward another goal may start. Also consider if any of the goals that will take multiple years to complete. Identify step goals for each of the 5-year goals.
Create your goals for the next year from the step goals based on priorities. Be aggressive but realistic. These goals should be SMART goals with quantitative measures and deadlines. If you have a Word for the Year, try and use it when writing your goals. Doing so with make your Word more effective in helping you focus on achieving your goals.
Goal Worksheets
For each of your yearly goals, complete a Goal Worksheet. You will use this worksheet to establish intermediate step goals for the year, identify potential obstacles and ways to work past them, and identify the actions to be taken. There is also a space to describe why this goal is important. You can come back to this statement when you need a little push to keep you motivated.
You will notice a column in the “Actions to take” table for “Task, Habit or Project”. Let’s define the difference between these types of actions. Tasks are things you complete once and check it off. Multiple tasks may be required to be executed in sequentially, but each is a simple task. Habits are tasks that you repeat over and over and over. For example, if your goal is to learn to speak Italian, you might have tasks to research classes and to sign up for a class. However, studying and practicing conversing in Italian would need to be done habitually.
Some tasks are not simple. Here’s an example: You are an artist and have a goal to teach small classes in a home studio. Currently you don’t have a home studio large enough to tutor even a single student. You need to “Build a studio that includes space for 6 students.” I suppose if you have a magic wand, that could be a task. I don’t have a magic wand, so to me it’s a project. A project is made up of multiple tasks that together produce an outcome. Tasks within the project have dependencies on one another. Some groups of tasks must be completed sequentially, while others can be executed concurrently. Often there are time gaps in the schedule waiting for someone else to complete and action. For example, you summit the paperwork required for a building permit (your task) and wait for approval (before you can perform the next task in the sequence). The sample project plan (available in the free downloads) can be used to break down a project into the smaller actions to be taken. It also includes space for resources required and budgeted costs.
Summary
Goal planning with a long-term, near-term and 1-year goals ensures that what we are working on in the days and month right in front of us is leading us toward achieving our dreams. Looking at goal planning using a process improvement framework gives us a structured approach for identifying the big actions needed to move from our Current State toward our Ideal State. The Goal Planning Worksheet, Goal Worksheet and Project Plan help us to document our goals and develop action plans. These actions will used in our monthly, weekly and daily planning to ensure we achieve our goals.
Happy Planning,
Linda
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