Preparing for 2022: Part 1

The first thing I do is categorize my goals for the coming year. I have six such categories: Financial, Career, Relational, Learning, Health, and Spiritual. You might have more; you might have less. But these to me feel like the most important aspects of my life and grouping my goals this way ensures they are my focus. So, step #1 is simply to define your categories.

Next, I make exactly two goals for each category. Making a single goal for each is fine, but more than two is not – unless you’re a hard-charging, goal-crushing machine that has never struggled with keeping your resolutions.

For me, two is plenty. Most people are overzealous with their ambitions and end up accomplishing little.

The way I come up with these goals is to essentially ask myself: How do I want to be better at the end of next year in this area of my life?

For example, as part of my “Relational” goals in 2021 I chose to send two handwritten notes a month to people in my life. My hope was that I’d become the kind of person that habitually writes handwritten notes to people.

For my “Health” goals, I committed to completing a 21k Spartan Race because I wanted to be the kind of person that could train for and complete that kind of rigorous event.

This isn’t rocket science, but it is important to begin with the end in mind when preparing for success. Ask yourself, “Who am I trying to become, and what kind of goal does that kind of person need to achieve?”.

So, step #2 is to create two goals for each category.

Ok, you’ve got your goals now. Now how do you keep them top of mind?

I’ve created a trick for myself that costs less than $15 and generates what ultimately becomes a cool souvenir to keep at the end of the year.

I create a business card with my goals.

Using Canva, you can get 50 of these cards for $11, plus shipping. I put one in my wallet, one in each of my several notebooks as placeholders, and use one in every book I read as a bookmark. I also tape one to my mirror in the bathroom and clip one to the sun visor of my truck. I also tattoo these goals on my forearm so every time I wear a t-shirt, I can see them.

Kidding about the last one, but I seriously do keep the business card synopsis of my goals pretty much everywhere to be continually reminded of what I’m trying to accomplish during the year.

This is no silver bullet, and remembering you have a goal does not mean that you will achieve it. But having a constant reminder of your goals can be a powerful thing if “out of sight, out of mind” is a problem for you.

So once you’ve created categories for your goals and picked a couple goals for each category, step #3 is to set up a system by which those goals will remain top of mind.

My approach is that simple, but there is some logic behind how I choose my goals and strive toward them that is worth sharing. The last couple of years I’ve been much better about working on my New Years’ Resolutions because I’ve had a few other tricks up my sleeve:

1. Keep your number of goals limited. As I said, I only choose two goals per category and that might even be too many. For most people, more goals is not better. It becomes paralyzing because there seems like too much to be done.

   You’ll benefit more from accomplishing a few goals than by failing to accomplish a zillion goals.
   

2. Keep your “per day” goals to a minimum. “Read for an hour per day” or “workout everyday” seem like great goals, but we often suffer from disillusionment the day we drop the ball. We miss “a day” and just throw in the towel because, in the technical sense, we have already failed by not doing that thing every single day. But if the point is progress and not perfection, then every day isn’t necessary. Just most days or consistently are sufficient.

   I have a “per day” goal for learning, but I keep it to 15 minutes and have built other routines to make this very easy to achieve.
   

3. Find an accountability partner. It doesn’t have to be the same person for every goal, but finding a few people to help hold you accountable for specific objectives can be helpful. I am recommending this with little such experience because I am bad at inviting other people into my life. Maybe that should be one of my goals…
   

4. Have a mix of “habit” and “terminal” goals. In 2021, I had a learning goal that required a habit of 15 minutes of daily learning on a fixed number of topics. That is a habit goal.

   I also set out to finish a 21k Spartan Race. That is a “terminal” goal, one with a fixed “I finished this and can check that goal off the list” date.

   Both are good because habit goals make you better every day but terminal goals give you a sense of pride and accomplishment that you’ll eventually not feel once habits are long established.
   

5. Prepare a plan. If you have a goal to exercise regularly but don’t have a gym membership and workout clothes on January 1st, I’d bet money you aren’t going to workout consistently. If you want to learn Mandarin but haven’t downloaded an audiobook or an app or signed up for a class, you probably aren’t going to learn Mandarin.

   Your plan doesn’t have to be detailed or exhaustive, just have the right tools ready and available to ensure you are doing instead of preparing to do.

Ready or not, a new year is on its way. I’m preparing with a sense of excitement and anticipation. It is going to be a good one for me. I hope it is for you, too.