The end of the year is an excellent time to reflect on the past year and plan for the future. It’s a time to take stock of what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve learned, and what you want to achieve in the coming year. Some people believe that personal planning at the end of the year is a waste of time stating that most just aren’t able to stick to their plans. However, this is not true.
According to a study conducted by Psychology Professor Dr. Gail Matthews, people who write down their goals and create a plan to achieve them are 33% more likely to achieve their goals than those who don’t. Another study by Michigan State University found that 76% of people who wrote down their goals and action steps successfully achieved their goals, compared to only 43% of those with unwritten goals. These studies suggest that creating a plan can significantly increase your chances of achieving your goals. By writing down your goals, breaking them down into smaller, actionable steps, and tracking your progress, you can stay focused and motivated. So, if you want to increase your chances of achieving your goals, it’s a good idea to create a plan and commit to taking action.
I just completed my yearly planning and loved the process. There are many ways to create a successful plan, I want to share some of my process with you. I realize my process might be a bit much for some but it’s because I really enjoy the experience.
Starting with Values
Values are the answer to the question: “In a world where you could choose to have your life be about something, what would you choose?” (Wilson & Murrell, 2004, 135). Values are defined as “verbally constructed global desired life consequences “(Hayes, Strosahl and Wilson, 1999; p. 206), or in more simple words: what people find important in life. I like to think about it as:
“What do you really believe in, such that you can commit your life to it?”
Values are chosen actions which are not obtained but instead they are brought into being from moment to moment. They are a direction in life. Assessing values means becoming aware of directions for your life that are in line with what is truly important to you. In addition, values can be a starting point to construct goals that promote movement in those directions.
Here are some questions that may help to promote the discovery of your values.
- What do I believe in?
- What is so important to me that I will truly commit my life to it?
- What do I want out of life?
- How do I want to measure myself?
- If I can say this about myself at the end of my life, I will be satisfied.
- What kind of person do I need to be in order to reach my life’s goal?
- What principles do I want to live my life by?
Key Priorities, Values and Themes for the Coming Year
Based in my values, I next identify my key priorities, values, and/or themes I want to focus on for the year. It’s a bit of a narrowing process which sets me up nicely for goal setting.
For me this is just a high-level brainstorming: Here is an example:
Key Priorities, Values and Themes
- Professional and financial development
- Minimize things and maximize people and experiences
- Simplify and manage my home and finances
- Enthusiastically learn and create
- Have more fun!
Personal Planning Ecosystem
Next, I created what I call my Personal Planning Ecosystem, these are simply the areas of my life I want to focus on when creating goals. I like to think of it as a wholistic view of important areas of my life. For mine, I carefully selected the words with specific meaning to me. This will look differently for everyone since everyone’s beliefs, circumstances, interests and priorities are different. I use three categories with two subcategories for each. My life goal sits in the middle.
Here is an example:
Here is a more detailed description of each category. Again, yours will look very different. For example, your sub categories for your Spiritual World would reflect your own experience and beliefs. For me, simplicity and authenticity are spiritual concepts, for others, their spiritual world may reflect a belief in a higher power and related values. Still, some others may not even have “Spiritual World” as a category. There is no “Right” way to put this together, only the way that feel right to you.
Goal Setting
Here is where my prior brainstorming comes into play. Based on my key priorities, values, and/or themes, I select where I want to set goals for the year. I know there are a lot of discussions about properly setting goals and what that looks like. The risk here is overthinking to the point you don’t set goals at all (i.e. SMART goals). Just jot down the things you want to accomplish and more structure can be added at the next level if you so choose. Here is an example of a possible goal in each of these subcategories above.
Goals
- Accomplishment: Grow my professional interests by X%
- Health: Feel better, stronger and have more energy
- Friends and Community: Develop two new close friendships – July
- Family: Strengthen Family bonds monthly
- Simplicity: Bring more order and balance into my life
- Authenticity: Have more fun!
Turning Goals into Actions
Next simply take each of your goals and add in the structure. Here I take each goal and identify the one, or few, strategies I’m going to deploy to meet the goal. This is where I ensure I have a clear metric and date so I can measure my progress. Add the actions associated with each strategy and when you want to have each completed. I like to add “Accomplices,” these are people, or tools, that may be able to help support and assist.
Here is an example:
I then use the status column to identify when I’ve started on a task and its current progress (Green = In process, Yellow = Running into trouble but still making progress, Red = progress stopped, need help or a tactic change).
Yearly planning can be as simple as writing down a few priorities for the year, or as detailed as Excel will allow. Whatever process works for you, it’s clear, planning will increase your odds of success. I hope you are able to take some of the ideas I’ve shared and use them to make progress this next year.
