How To Set Goals This November And Finish 2019 Strong

Posted on November 10, 2019 by Shefali Raina, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

It is November, 2019. Less than two months before the year ends!

Whether you are a wall street executive, work in high-tech, or are a key leader at a startup, you are probably very busy right now. Deals, markets, growth strategy, projects, meetings and the daily logistics of life are likely all-encompassing.

If you are like I was in my corporate career, you are focused, ROI-driven and strategic at work. Yet when it comes to your own life, you are likely defaulting to autopilot and letting time run by while you sit in status quo. This is something I see very often in my introductory calls with clients.

These last two months of the year are a great time to shake things up and elevate your game. Use this time to to regroup, reassess and (re)craft your work and life goals and take action.

You still have time to create results and finish the year strong.

Why Goals Are Important
Goals can give you clarity about the results you want to see. They can help you get to the essence of where you want to go, what you want to change and how you want to improve. Empowered by the clarity of your goals, you can focus your energy on execution and create forward momentum. Understanding your deeper goals and striving to achieve them can contribute to your sense of purpose, well-being and satisfaction.

Without goals, you may be operating without direction and replicating your days, weeks and even years, rudderless in the passage of time.

Five Tips For Setting And Achieving Goals
Here are my five tips to maximize your goal-setting ROI:

1. Get Clear On The Outcomes
As a first step, ask yourself: What outcomes do I want to see in my life by the end of the year, and why? To keep it simple, identify outcomes in three buckets: work, relationships and self. They could be about results you want to achieve, skills you want to develop or behavior you want to change.

For example, a client who is a financial services business COO set goals of broadening his network at work (something he always wanted to do but never made the time), being mentally present during family time (to enjoy focused time with his kids) and working on stress management (to experience less frustration and more well being). A startup founder chose to improve her team management skills at work (so that it was less draining to manage people), reenergize her network and get healthy. You get the picture.

2. Choose 2-3 Important But Achievable Goals
Look at your desired outcomes, and ask yourself two questions for each goal you want to achieve:

• Is this goal so important to me that I’ll make it a priority? If not, eliminate it.

• Can I achieve this in the next two months? If not, break down the goal into subparts that are more realistic and take those on.

Now select your two to three highest-impact, highest-priority and highest-ROI goals. There’s nothing stopping you from setting bigger, more audacious goals, and more of them, but we’re talking specifically about year-end goals here.

3. Create A Game Plan, And Write It Down
For each goal you identify, create a specific game plan that drives the outcomes, and write it down:

• What result do you want to see? Be specific.

• What actions are you committed to taking to achieve that result?

• What is your logistics plan to prioritize these actions?

• What is your mindset plan to overcome your discomfort and keep you motivated?

• What is your accountability plan for holding yourself accountable and dealing with your weak moments?

This isn’t rocket science. But the gap between knowing to do something and actually doing is often harder to cross than we imagine.

You likely know this, which is why you need a strong game plan. Most of my clients are Type A executives with very busy schedules, and two things we especially focus on are the logistics plan and mindset plan to overcome the aversion to stepping outside of the status quo.

4. Make Your Goals A Priority Every Day
Make your goals a priority. Dwell on them, talk about them and give them your focus, your energy and your attention. Use tools to help you do this: Set a morning routine, take on mental rehearsals, block off your calendar and set your intentions. Experiment with these tools, and choose the ones that work best.

5. Take Action
The only way to do it is to do it. Whether you want to get smart on a topic, strengthen your network, get healthy, get a new job, manage stress better, take action towards that pomotion, learn a new skill or experience more well being, almost anything you want to do is achievable when you set a goal, commit to a game plan and execute it one step at a time.

Final Call: Do this now – schedule time to set goals and build a game plan. November Goals + 2 months of committed action = satisfied you on Jan 1, 2020.

“A year from now, you will wish you had started today” – Karen Lamb

(Adapted from my article that originally published in Forbes)