Summary

The author reflects on potential failures of their 2024 goals through a pre-mortem analysis, identifying reasons for failure and strategies to prevent them.

Abstract

In a proactive approach to goal setting for 2024, the author engages in a pre-mortem exercise, imagining that they have failed to achieve their set goals by the end of the year. The goals include launching a successful Etsy shop, writing a musical, doubling earnings from Medium, completing a Spanish language section on Duolingo, and mastering a standing back tuck in gymnastics. The article outlines specific reasons for potential failure in each area, such as fear of putting personal projects out, lack of marketing content, procrastination due to writer's block, and loss of focus or interest. The author then proposes solutions to these issues, emphasizing the importance of planning, setting minimum payments for each goal, and not allowing boredom or difficulty to lead to giving up.

Opinions

The author believes in the value of a pre-mortem analysis for identifying potential pitfalls in advance.
They acknowledge personal fears and procrastination as significant barriers to achieving their goals.
The author recognizes the need for discipline and structured planning to maintain focus and progress.
They suggest that spreading oneself too thin can lead to a lack of meaningful progress in any goal.
The author plans to prioritize goals and allocate extra time and resources to the most important ones, using a "savings snowball" approach.
They admit to having cut themselves slack in previous years, leading to a lack of focus and quitting when faced with challenges.
The author expresses a desire to overcome feelings of purposelessness and take action towards their goals.

2024 Pre-mortem

“If you were to fail at this goal, what went wrong?”

Come on an adventure with me. Pretend it’s December 31, 2024. The year has passed, and we’re looking back at the goals we set for 2024. And, in this exercise, we’ve failed at every single one. Nothing we set out to do actually got accomplished.

The job I’ll have, then, is to figure out why I failed. In business ventures, this is called doing a post-mortem. Essentially, you ask, “What went wrong? Why?” It’s a fairly common thing to do at the end of an initiative, especially if it didn’t work.

But a concept that’s fascinated me since I heard about it is the idea of a pre-mortem. It’s fairly simple, and I’ve already alluded to most of it, but let’s lay it out plainly:

Pretend the timeline for the project has passed, and it failed. Why did it fail? List every possible reason this project might not work out.

Then figure out how to solve them before they become an issue.

I’m going to do this for myself now, posting a few of them here on Medium as examples. As your new year starts and you look at the goals you are setting, I highly recommend the same process.

The Failures

Launch a Successful Etsy Shop

I started 2024 with plans to make my Etsy shop a higher priority. I failed because:

I was too scared to let my most personal projects go live.
I didn’t fill out all my potential marketing content. I know there are places I can write “thank you for your order” copy, about my shop, and more, and I didn’t do them.
I was too scared to take on the risk of printing products in advance, so I didn’t expand from printables into other designs I took the time to make.
I got bored and stopped making things.
I took shortcuts in my work and posted things that weren’t the best quality, or weren’t things I personally would use.

Write a Musical

I started 2024 with plans to get at least close to finishing my adaptation of a novel into a musical. I failed because:

I let writer’s block stop me from drafting the second act.
I didn’t write out the lead sheets and scores for songs, so I couldn’t create a full, usable libretto.
I was too scared to approach people who could help me stage readings or find producers.
I tried to find producers and stage readings, but it didn’t work out.
People didn’t like the show as it was so far, and I was too prideful to take their feedback seriously.
I stopped prioritizing my musical in favor of shorter-term money, even if out of alignment with my ultimate life goals.

Double My 2023 Earnings from Medium

I had a good year on Medium in 2023, and I want to double what I earned in 2023 as I enter 2024. I failed because:

I got ideas but didn’t write them.
The articles I wrote were rushed, rather than my best, most authentic work.
I didn’t hold to my niches, expanding too widely and losing connection with my audience.
I held so tightly to my niche that I got bored and either stopped writing or stopped having new ideas about ADHD and productivity, writing lower-quality work overall because of it.

Finish Section 4 in Spanish Duolingo

I used Duolingo every single day of 2023. I didn’t even use a streak freeze. However, I found myself hitting my 5 minutes of Duolingo opened and maintaining high XP via games and XP hacks rather than actually learning something and moving through the units. So in 2024, I want to at least go from unit 9 in section 4 to the end of section 4 (unit 30) in 2024. I failed because:

I chased XP from challenges rather than learning from moving forward.
I got bored of Spanish and started something new.
I removed the app blocker that doesn’t let me use social media or Solitaire until I’ve had Duolingo open for 5 minutes.

Standing Back Tuck on the Floor

After a wrist injury in 2022 and focused healing in early 2023, I found myself flailing when it came to my fitness goals in the latter part of 2023. So as 2024 started, I decided to set a few intentional goals around my gymnastics, ones I could do with or without my wrist. I failed because:

I goofed off at gymnastics instead of focusing on my goals.
I got injured in a way that prevented me from working on them.
I stopped trying/going to gymnastics at all.
I was able to do goals that did involve my wrist, so I neglected those that don’t.

The Lessons

One of the reasons I was so intent on a pre-mortem this year was because I watched myself get listless in 2022 and 2023 over various things. I cut myself a lot of slack on my SMART goals… and ended up quitting when things got hard, and feeling so unfocused without a plan to follow.

So in 2024 I’m planning again. My known potential weak spots throughout my goals, as evidenced by this pre-mortem, are getting bored or finding something difficult and giving up. I also know there’s a chance I spread myself too thin and thus don’t make meaningful progress on any of my goals.

I’m approaching money with a savings snowball: set amounts for each goal, and any extra going toward priority 1. I want to approach my creative projects in a similar way, with a “minimum payment” each day/week/month to each goal, but any extra going to one focus.

I already have a minimum payment set up for Duolingo: five minutes a day. I go to gymnastics a minimum of twice a month. My Medium minimum will likely be three articles a month, and there is no minimum payment for my musical right now — only what I might be inspired to work on if I have an idea.

Getting Etsy set up will be my first snowball, getting all my extra time payments until it feels fairly ready to automate. I know from my pre-mortem that I need to get comfortable writing out the marketing material and paying attention to keywords, thank you emails, folders, featured products, and other features that will help my products stand out.

Ideally, when February starts, Etsy will move to a “minimum payment” and my musical will get my extra time. But we’ll see. All I know is I’m tired of letting a feeling of purposelessness stop me from doing the next right thing.