Time to Prioritize
People who can focus, get things done.
People who can prioritize, get the right things done. - John Maeda
This month is all about Goal Setting December and laying the foundation to ensure goal success in 2022. Sometimes what impacts our goal achievement is trying to focus on too many goals at the same time – particularly at the beginning of the year.
That doesn’t mean that you need to hold back on goal setting – create the longest list you want! But, take some time to prioritize the goals so you can make decisions about which ones you want to focus on and when.
One way to achieve this is to prioritize the following:
· The goal areas you want to focus on
· The goals under each area
· The time periods you want to tackle first
Use our Success Worksheet (download here) to help you work through these prioritizations.
Goal Area Prioritization
Last week we challenged you to determine areas of your life that you wanted to set goals in.
This week we want to challenge you to narrow the goal areas to 2-3 you want to commit to for right now. Your goal areas may be broad (like personal or professional) or more focused (like health and career).
Use the following questions to help yourself think more about which goal areas you want to focus on first.
· What are the key goal areas you want to focus on in 2022? (personal, professional, health, career, relationship, etc.)
· What are specific goal areas I want to focus on for my professional life this year?
· What are specific goal areas I want to focus on for my personal life this year?
Once you have identified 2-3 goal areas, the next step is to prioritize them by importance to you. This can be done by identifying which you feel the strongest about, which you have the most idea of goals to achieve, or any other factor which feels right to you. In the end, you will have goal area #1, #2, and #3.
Goal Prioritization
What do you want to achieve?
Once you have your goal areas, focus on the actual goals you would like to achieve under each area. What is that you want to specifically achieve in each area of your life? For instance, maybe under the goal area of fitness, you want to lose 10lbs. Or, under the career goal area, you want to get a promotion.
Use the following questions to help you determine your 3-5 goals for each area:
· Can I break each goal area down even more? (for example, career could be broken into professional development and promotion goals)
· For each goal area, what would I most like to achieve?
· What are goals that I think of often but have yet to commit to achieving?
· What would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail?
*It's ok to think big, as long as you have things that you KNOW that you could do to work towards that goal.
Once you have 3-5 goals under each goal area, it is time to prioritize them.
You can do that by considering things like how likely you are to accomplish the goal, how important the goal is to you, how many resources (such as money) the goal will require, and how long you’ve had that goal in mind. When you finish you should have each goal ranked by priority under each goal area.
Time Frame Prioritization
Now let’s use time as a way to prioritize our goals. For each goal under the goal areas, estimate how long it would take to complete the goal.
For instance, with a financial and time commitment, you could be ready to start spinning classes in order to lose 10lbs on January 1st. Other goals may take much longer. Decide whether using broad time frames (short term, medium term, long term) or specific dates (April 15th) or duration (25 hours) are best for you.
Do you want to focus more on goals you can achieve quickly or ones that are longer-term?
Once you have the time frames added, decide if that makes you want to change the prioritization of the goals under each goal area. If so, re-prioritize and then finalize your initial goal list for 2022!
Join Me for Goal Setting December
Join me this month for Goal Minded December- let’s get ready for the new year together!
Use this week’s complimentary Success Worksheet (download here) to work through this week’s Actionable Success Steps. This provides you with a worksheet to fill out this week's Actionable Success Steps! And follow along for weekly blogs, reels, and downloadable worksheets to get you ready for a new year of goal success.
Practice
* Actionable Success Steps
Use these Actionable Success Steps and our complimentary Success Worksheet (here) to participate in Goal Minded December!
(1) Identify 3 goal areas that you want to focus on this year and prioritize them.
(2) Determine 3 goals under each goal area and prioritize them.
(3) Decide the time frame for each goal and re-prioritize if necessary.
Learn More
The Growth Group Academy currently provides instruction to strengthen your success skills. Check out our website (here) and sign up for our emails to be the first to learn about more Goal Setting December activities!