New Year Resolutions weren’t much of a thing for me. When I look back, I only had such resolutions twice in my lifetime.

One was when I promised myself I’d go on a diet to go down to my ideal weight, and it was more for health reasons. The second time was when I promised myself I’d finally change my career since my previous one as an IT Consultant was at a stalemate for too long.

For me, resolutions are only needed when you want to make drastic changes in your life.

Otherwise, it should be more about setting goals and ambitions for the year. And if you’re going to chase after goals within a year, I suggest you hit the ground running instead of tiptoe-ing around.

A Year’s Journey is a Marathon

Are you the type of person who treats their race to attain their goals as a sprint?

I was like that, especially when I was straight out of university.

When I landed my first job, I wanted to sprint fast and get to that finish line. As time went by, I kept seeing the finish line go farther and farther. Who was moving the finish line?

It was me.

Over the years, running the sprint became tiring. I achieved my goals, yes, but it was like chasing that dummy rabbit in a greyhound dog race. You catch it, but you have to go again.

What I learned was that I needed to treat a year as a marathon.

It’s an entire year. 365 days!

Similar to a marathon, we can chop it up into stages. You can take it month by month, bi-monthly, quarterly, trimestral, and so on.

Finalize the duration of each stage, then assign your goals for each. It’s like setting up rest stages for a long marathon.

New Year – New Goals?

Now that you’ve divided your calendar into stages, you have to figure out the goals that you want to achieve for the year.

Some go for financial goals, life goals, health goals, and the like. That’s great! As long as you set goals, because there are definite benefits to doing so. And, here’s a suggestion on how to further classify your goals so that you can use it as means to train yourself in achieving your targets. 

SCHEDULE GOALS

When we were forced to shift to a WFH setup and everything is done online, many of us (including me) had our work schedules thrown into a frenzy. You are now faced with a dilemma when doing tasks. Do you work on tasks for the family or your work tasks?

And, a lot of times, it isn’t that easy to choose which to prioritize.

What I suggest is that you have to fix your schedule and make it a goal.  What time will you wake up, how much time do you allot for exercise, and when do you start on actual work tasks? These are things that you have to setup and it’s something you have to settle with the rest of the family.

PROCESS GOALS

Unless you’re working on a creative project, routines are actually key to organizing your tasks, which can lead to the results that you want to achieve. For us in sales, the process is pretty straightforward. The key is to plot those steps into a work week so that we can hit our targets.

For those who are in IT, there are specific steps for development projects. Developing a process on how to manage those steps allow teams to be more consistent. In turn, consistency drives up productivity.

OUTCOME GOALS

Outcome goals are the end result that you want to achieve. This is where you can get creative and establish your measurable goals. Whether it’s achieving a certain standard or simply reaching certain metrics, it’s an outcome of your efforts.

For example: In insurance, many try to attain the MDRT standard, which is a level that allows you to be part of an international trade association that develops best practices among practitioners in the industry.

In terms of finances, some of you may want to rebuild or strengthen the foundation of your financial health by going back to basics of money management.

New Year – Safer Ambitions?

With how 2020 went, people have been asking me: Is 2021 a good year to stretch yourself or just play it safe? Do you call bluff and go all in or do you fold and settle in for the next play?

For those who know me, I’ve never been the one to settle with my targets.

Whenever I enter the year, I always set my eyes on a particular standard that I wanna attain. But I don’t set that standard as my main goal.

What I do is I figure out a stretch goal and set that as my target.

Why do I do it this way?

One thing I learned from my days as an IT Consultant and business development officer for an IT company, is that setting a goal to achieve a standard is a setup for failure.

On the other hand, if I set my sights on a stretch goal, I have a higher chance of achieving the standards and a good chance of exceeding it.

Do you want to reach your ambitions? Go for your stretch goals!