Happy New Year! It’s Day 2 of 2019. For some the plan is to take off from where you paused in 2018, for others 2018’s a year thankfully gone and you long to start afresh.
You may have really nice dreams this year, dreams to excel or pass an exam, land a new job, improve in a career but do you have any New Year Goals?
Your dreams have a greater chance to succeed when you set goals.
Everyone Celebrates A Goal
A goal is a specific result you wish to achieve in the course of time when you carry out an action or series of actions. Let’s break that down. A goal is
Result = Dream + Action + Time
Your New Year Goals will be Results (a change in experience or circumstance) = Dream (a desire, wish, prayer, hope) + Actions (something you’re willing and committed to do to achieve your desired result) + Time (the time required over which your effort will be rewarded)
But not all action is sensible or will get you results.
Practice does not necessarily make perfect.
For many areas of life, things must be done in a certain way before you can begin to improve or achieve results. We’ll consider the difference between practice and deliberate practice in another post.
If you are yet to do so, here’s a short, short guide to how to set your new year goals:
1. Write your Goals
- Get a notebook or diary or a note app on your mobile.
- Write the result(s) you desire. I advise you to write one to three things only, okay, maximum five things you want to accomplish this year.
These are your most important goals / results aka keystone goals. Achieving these will have the greatest impact on your life. But be honest with yourself. You’ll waste your time if you reach out for goals or results you don’t believe in.
To illustrate, let’s consider Bridget, a senior secondary school student who writes her most important goal for the year:
My Goal(s)
- Achieve a score of 220 in UTME
That may seem low for some people, but it’s her honest goal.
Next, write the action or set of actions you’ll take to accomplish each goal. There’s a difference between what you must do and what you are prepared and willing to do. Again, be honest with thyself. So Bridget writes her actions like so:
2. My Action(s)
- Practice 200 UTME past questions
- Attend extramural classes
- Join a UTME study group
- Revise questions until I am constantly achieving a score of at least 300
3. My Action(s) + Time
Now factor in the time it’ll take to accomplish each goal. You should merge the action and the time required. Bridget would present hers like this:
- Practice 200 UTME past questions every day between 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
- Attend extramural classes one month before the exam date
- Join a UTME study group by week 2 in January
- Revise questions for the final two weeks before the exam until I am constantly achieving a score of at least 300
Hope you get the picture. You could apply this same simple plan to setting a goal to get a new job-or the first job for that matter, to achieve a certification, to master a skill, and so on. Go on and set your New Year Goals with confidence.
Do you have a question or know a goal-setting method that’s worked for you? Feel free to comment below or message me.
To your success!