“It’s the last month before December and I still haven’t touched my January goals… time to sort that out!” (followed by panicked emoji’s)
This was posted by a friend on Instagram so I immediately invited her to join our Q&A Tuesday ‘live’ session tackling just that (NEW time slot of 7pm, every Tuesday, ‘live’ on my Instagram stories). With exactly 7 weeks to go before ‘Happy New Year’, are you on track to achieve your 2019 goals, New Year’s Resolutions and intentions? If you’re feeling behind, overwhelmed or unmotivated, here are a few great pointers which our Q&A Tuesday community offered:
- I try ask myself what’s urgent vs. important (@shaelwilliams)
- Learn to say no to things (in order to create) time for myself (@kerry.lea)
- Tackle one task at a time (@craighawks)
Are you doing any of the above? In addition, here’s a HOW TO that I’ve found incredibly helpful in my own life and share it with my coaching clients:
What is your 2019 goal that will make a significant impact?
- Jot down all of the goals / actionables / NYR’s / intentions that you have/had for 2019. No matter how seemingly big or small, write them down.
- Out of the lot, determine what the single goal is that, if you focus and get it done within the next 7 weeks, will have the most significant impact on your business, career or in your personal life. What will your business or life look like once you’ve achieved that goal? How will you feel? What will it mean to you?
- Once you’ve determined what that goal is, reverse engineer the ‘to do list’ around it. Working the tasks in reverse will give you a clear map of what needs to be done by when.I realise that you may not have the luxury to drop everything else that is going on in your life, in order to focus solely on this goal – that’s not what I’m suggesting. This is about helping you cut through the overwhelm and laser your focus on one meaningful goal for a short burst of 7 weeks so that you end off the year having taken noteworthy steps towards what’s really important. Let’s be honest, everything in this day and age seems urgent – but not everything that is urgent is important.
- In your diary, write down the actionables per week and then per day. PS> Do this process in ‘one’ sitting – don’t figure it out as you go. Sure, you can tweak where necessary as you go but it’s important to map it out before you get going.
Here’s a really simplified example: The goal that will have the most significant impact in my life is to run 5 km’s in 35 minutes by the 31st of December 2019. 
- What do you need to start, stop and change in order to achieve this? You may need to buy new inner soles, get a running buddy who won’t let you bail on your daily/weekly runs, plot your weekly Parkruns & Myruns.
Share this info with people who will cheer you on and hold you accountable.
- What do you need to have done 6,5,4,3,2,1 week from now?
- What do you need to during this week?
- What do you need to do today?
Will running 5km’s in 35 minutes significantly change your life? Maybe not but I hope this gives you a loose outline of how to go ahead and create a framework for yourself.
Don’t wait until 2020 to ‘start fresh’. Do it now.
Let me know how it goes! Contact me if you want to chat about support through personal / career coaching. Please don’t wait until 2020 to start the conversation. Do it now. Don’t undersell yourself. Even if you know that you’ll not be able to accomplish it 100% by the 31st because of some factors that are truly out of your control, do it anyway if it will significantly impact you. 80% reached is better than nothing and at least you’ll be able to walk into 2020 feeling empowered, able and ready to do what you must to complete it and move on to your next.
