A Balanced Approach to Setting Your New Year’s Goals

GOALS is a Recipe for Success

A goal without a plan is just a wish. A desire to achieve something requires a realistic perspective and a concrete plan. Whether you are planning long-term or short-term goals, or want to start a new habit, you will be better prepared and clearer about your objectives using GOALS. This technique gives you a better chance to accomplish your goals.

That is why setting up your goals using GOALS is a useful method to consider when planning for the new year and beyond. Thinking about all the obstacles in the way of any goal can be discouraging, but only focusing on future success is unrealistic. GOALS is about contrasting the positives with the negatives to get a balanced plan for proceeding.

G →goal-

· What do you want to achieve? Have? Adopt?

· Why is this important to you?

Being as specific as possible when setting a goal allows a deeper connection with it. This will increase your drive and motivation, propelling you to success.

O →obstacles-

· What hurdles do you foresee standing in your way?

· Is there anything that you think could unexpectedly stand in your way?

· What is the anti-vision, or opposite, of a successful outcome?

· If you fail, why did it happen?

Brainstorming the potential obstacles that could get in your way helps you have a well-rounded vision of your goal’s strategic path. It also gives you an opportunity to create a plan for how to handle them if these hurdles do pop up, giving you a better chance of success and reducing feelings of overwhelm.

A →approach-

· How do you begin?

· When will you begin?

· What resources do you need to succeed?

· What can you prepare ahead of time?

· Think about your budget and time investment. Both what is needed and what is available.

· What habits do you need to adopt?

Thinking about all the details beforehand, like time, budget, and resources needed, gives you a good foundation from which to start.

L →lead to-

· What does your goal lead to?

· What is the ideal outcome?

· What feelings does achieving your goal lead to?

Visualizing the positive outcome and the results of achievement helps us maintain excitement and a connection to the motivation behind setting the goal.

S →strategize-

· Consider everything you have brainstormed and create a plan to move forward.

· Write everything down.

· What will you do if one of the obstacles arises?

· What does your timeline look like?

· Break down the steps to take and the tasks to complete.

· Set your priorities to make time to achieve your goals.

· Set milestones to hit along your path to achievement

This is where we put everything together into a strategy to accomplish the goal. Maintaining a balanced vision of the goal lets us make a well-rounded plan for success. Writing goals down as well as having a complete and clear strategy of how you will achieve the goal have both been shown statistically to increase the rate of success. Once you have your strategy and plan, post it somewhere that is visible and hold yourself accountable.

To help with creating your GOALS and timeline, I created a Notion database that you can break everything down into and put everything into a timeline for the whole year. Check out the template here. Apply the code "goals"

Final Thoughts

Going through each of the letters and answering the questions prepares you with a clear strategy and plan of attack. Using the template gives you a timeline you can refer to throughout the year.

The GOALS technique is good because you are planning for both a successful outcome and any obstacles that may arise; you are taking a realistic approach by hoping for the best but planning for the worst.

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