Setting goals is a great first step to get clarity and define what your dreams and desires for the next year or period are (read more about how I approach goal setting here). To then help you move closer to actually achieving them, I’d like to introduce you to a number of systems that will support you to stay on track and turn your goals into tangible outcomes.
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
~ James Clear
The systems or approaches that I use are creating a roadmap, setting objectives, using a calendar and reviewing your objectives. While creating a roadmap only needs to be created as a one-off, the other systems are used on a weekly basis.
Let’s break them down one by one.
Create a roadmap
This one is an extension of your goals. Of course, it’s super motivating to have big and inspiring goals, but when we sit down to actually work on them, it can feel very overwhelming if we haven’t got a specific plan. That’s why the first thing you want to do is to build a roadmap for your goals.
For example, if you want to grow your newsletter by a certain number of subscribers, it would be useful to first think about all of the milestones attached to it such as getting into a writing habit and publishing a newsletter every week.
Set weekly objectives
Once you’ve broken down your goals and defined the milestones that you need to reach to achieve your overall goals, you can now focus on your weekly objectives.
Your weekly objectives are the specific tasks you need to do to get closer to achieving your goals. Going back to the newsletter example, if you want to grow the reach of your newsletter by a certain number of subscribers, your weekly objectives might be to draft, edit and send out your newsletter and also sign-up a specific number of subscribers to your list through personal outreach.
Use a calendar to schedule your tasks
In the next step, we are getting even more practical. You’ve now got a set of tasks that you want to do this week to move closer to achieving your goals. That’s amazing, but unless you schedule them and make time for them throughout your week, it’s very likely that you are going to forget about them or you will try to fit them in at the end of the week and it won’t feel very joyful.
Again, going back to the newsletter example, put in some time to work on your newsletter draft including research, time to edit it and time to send it out. Also, add some time aside for when you are going to reach out to people to increase the number of sign-ups.
At this point, it’s also worth thinking about your backup plan, i.e. think about a subsequent time slot for your tasks just in case you don’t get the chance to work on your newsletter draft on Monday morning.
Weekly review
Another important system to help you gauge how you are getting on with your goals is a weekly review process. Set time aside every Sunday or the following Monday and review the past week. What went well, what needs improving and are you still inspired by your goals? Anything you haven’t quite finished you can add to next weeks’ tasks. The weekly review time is also a great tool to help you notice when you didn’t do something and an opportunity for you to ask why. Are other things more important to you right now or does your overall goal not feel aligned anymore? Wait a week to see what happens when you add the same task/s to your weekly to-do list and then eventually make changes to your initial goal rather than being too hard on yourself for not working on it.
The weekly review will help you to set even better, more inspiring and realistic objectives for the week ahead.