The Key to Getting What You Want- Goal Setting for 2017

Sitting down to write my goals for a new year is like a second Christmas to me…seriously! It’s the end of 2016 and I cannot wait to write down my goals for 2017.    I immediately begin executing the plans attached to each goal:  family, business, personal, spiritual, community, etc.  

LEARNING TO SET GOALS EARLY ON                Goal setting didn’t start as early for me as I hope it will for my children.  Just the other day, I asked Gunnar, my 5 year old son, what his “goal for the day”.  He responded, “To put together my Angry Birds Lego set with you.”  I kinda chuckled underneath my breath and said, “That’s awesome…  I will help you accomplish that goal”.   Gunnar knew what he wanted.  He wanted to build that new Lego set he was just given.   As Cameron Herold writes in Double, Double, “Before you get what you want, you have to know what you want.” This is the core of getting what you want. So that night (and my aching back later), he accomplished his goal- the Lego birds were flying over the table via catapult and Gunnar was happy. 

He had achieved his goal.      GETTING STARTED IS AS EASY AS 1-2-3 It’s important that these annual goals align with the long term vision of your life.  Each year, I spend some time by myself, with my wife, and with my company setting annual goals that are important in the following year.   As Herald says, it’s a “Vivid Vision”.  Once this is built you reverse engineer it and then the fun begins. 

1.  Start by simply writing down some areas in your life that you want to improve or things you want to accomplish.  Most of you have heard of S.M.A.R.T. goals.  Those that are new to the goal setting and getting what you want world, it stand for:

  2. Once I have set my S.M.A.R.T. goals, I write out the action steps that I need to take in order to achieve it.  3.  Then take action and your life begins to change. 

MY FAVORITE GOAL I MET IN 2016 , and ONE OF MY GOALS FOR 2017

To give you an example of how this works, I will share how I met my favorite goal for 2016.  My wife and I set a goal together to have twelve (12) date nights in 2016.  This was no easy task as she was pregnant with our third child, but it’s important to keep the fire burning.  🙂   This aligns with both of our long term vision plan for our life.  We set the goal together and then blocked out our calendars together.  We then discussed what we would like to do on our date nights and set other personal and professional goals around the dates we had specified. One goal that I will accomplish in 2017 is to work 12 or less Saturdays in the entire year (this will help me intentionally spend more time with family and friends thus providing more balance and joy in my life).  Again, it aligns with my long term vision, it is S.M.A.R.T., and by intentionally blocking every other Saturday during the busy season, I will make this a priority to accomplish. You can do it!  Good luck with your goal setting and remember that you must know what you want before you can get what you want.