I hope you have had a good start to 2013!
You may have noticed I haven’t made a post in the last few months. One reason I’ve been absent is my resistance to being another source of “New Year’s Resolution Noise.”
Starting in early December and continuing through January, I was bombarded with email messages pushing me on how to “reinvent myself in 2013” or “start the new year with a new you,” or ”make it the best year ever,” etc., etc., etc. I don’t know about you, but these message seem so contrived and make me feel under attack. So I tune out.
I really believe it’s important to create goals (I am a financial planner after all) but you need to do it on your own terms if you want them to stick. And frankly, between the holidays and year end deadlines for my financial planning clients, January 1st is a lousy time for me to plan anything.
I prefer late January as a time to layout my thoughts. And that leads me the second reason why I haven’t posted for a while: I wanted to make changes to SpeakOfMoney.com, but needed to think about the “what” and the “how” — so this year, I took extra time to ask myself bigger questions…bigger questions to push me both personally and professionally.
I came away re-energized with a plan to implement numerous ideas that I’ve been carrying around in my head. I’m excited that a big part of my focus will be on expanding SpeakOfMoney.com.
In the coming weeks, you’ll start to see more frequent updates, including video posts, the addition of a podcast and monthly webinars. I’m very excited about the future of Speak of Money and hope you will enjoy the new focus.
Jump Start Your Goal Planning
Right now, though, I thought I would give you the framework that I used to jump start my goal planning. If you struggle in setting meaningful life or business goals, try using these questions to help you focus on what is truly important to you.
And of course, start with whatever date is right for you.
Take each question and write down your answers. Narrative form is great but use bullet points if you just want to get ideas down quickly. The important part is to WRITE IT DOWN. Go with your first thoughts and gut feelings for the best insight. If you get stuck, find a partner to help you work through it or post your questions in the comments.
- Your Vision: What is the feeling or state of being that you want to experience this coming year. Find the one word that best describes this. Think of this as your theme for the year. Fill in the blank: This is your Year of____________.
- Your Mission: Why is this vision so important to you? What is the impact this will make?
- Your Goals: What are the top dreams you have for this coming year? Do these dreams fit with what you said in your vision and mission? How do they connect? If they don’t, why are they on the list? What goals do you need to support the vision and mission you created?
- Your Framework: Ask yourself…How do I feel about where I am now? How about compared to a year ago? What has worked well? What hasn’t worked well? What do I know now that I didn’t know a year ago? Am I being realistic with my goals? Am I expecting too much or too little to happen? How should I prioritize these goals? What might get in the way of my goals? How will I handle roadblocks or setbacks? What do I need to be successful? How will I monitor progress? How will I celebrate milestones?
- Your Objectives: What are realistic targets/milestone of your goals that can be measured? Put these on your calendar.
- Your Action Steps: What specifically needs to happen to reach the above objectives and in what order? Put these on your calendar.
I’d love to hear from you. If you want to share some of YOUR answers to these questions, please add them to the comments below.