Welcome to 2024! The Inspire HQ team are all back on deck and pumped for another year of building great workplaces.
I really like this time of year. As someone who is big on setting goals, I enjoy looking back on the previous year; reflecting on the wins, the challenges, the things I’d do differently with hindsight, the surprises and the opportunities. It feels like many of us have a renewed energy and freshness for the year ahead, the slate wipe cleaned so to speak, starting over with our new goals and dreams.
Setting our new years resolutions, or our goals for the new year can be a bit tokenistic. It shouldn’t take a new year to instigate the setting of a goal. And, as we launch in to the second month of the year, maybe for many of us those goals we set at the start of January are already starting to wane or maybe they have already gone by the way side because we haven’t stuck to doing what we promised ourselves we would do.
Have you ever set a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)? Business or personal? You set the goal and then days or weeks or even months in something happens that means the BHAG goes out the window? Something triggers a change and it railroads your best set plans or intentions?
I certainly have. It’s damn frustrating, it can be demotivating, it can cause you to lose direction, doubt yourself and/or the direction you were heading or instigate a lot more work as you need to rework the BHAG and head in a new or different direction. Let me give you an example. I’ve set goals for myself and the business that have included key people in the business only to have that key team member leave. It feels like you are back to square one, starting over, time and energy lost or wasted and the BHAG falls over.
Why am I sharing this with you? Because I think a lot of us might be in the same boat. This time of year is when a lot of us set our goals for the year and we start out positive, motivated, with a focused mindset to work hard and smart to achieve our goals and then life throws us a curve ball and we get derailed from our goals.
If you have followed my blogs for a little while now, you’ll know I am a big advocate for having a mentor or coach. I have had a few mentors and coaches over the years and with different purposes or focuses. Most recently for the last couple of years I have worked with a business coach which I have found invaluable. Having a business or personal mentor – coach has been invaluable for me and a big part of the business coaching I have done over the last couple of years has been around getting better at setting goals and the direction and how those BHAG are framed to give me and the business a greater chance of success.
By having a business coach, here’s how my approach to goal setting has changed.
Reflection
I was fortunate enough to have three weeks off over January; a time to rest and relax, recharge the batteries and a time that I used for a great deal of reflection. In the past, I haven’t invested in the reflection piece so much, launching in and setting new goals and away I go. This reflection time led to some ah-ha moments, allowed me to really consider what’s important – are priorities for me this year and ultimately has influenced and shaped the goals I have set for this year. Having a business coach also means that this reflection happens throughout the year. Part of my coaching sessions is about exploring where things are at, reflecting on what’s working, what’s not, where I might be getting distracted (the shiny red ball syndrome – which I can be prone to!) and this allows for those goals to be tweaked, the sails readjusted so to speak so that whatever is happening in life and/or business doesn’t mean those goals have to be thrown out the window; it they are still relevant and a priority. It’s also highlighted that sometimes priorities change and that it’s ok to drop that goal and set a new one because things have changed. I’ve learnt sometimes we can hold on to a goal that no longer serves us and having a coach or mentor to help you see that is priceless.
Preparation & Planning
Are you someone who just sits down and in a short space of time, writes your list of goals and away you go? That used to be me. For example, come early January, I’d get out my notebook, spend a couple of hours maybe, setting my goals, developing them in to SMART goals and away I’d go. This time around, I’ve taken a different approach. Back in mid December I had a session with my business coach that was the first step in planning and preparing for my goals for 2024. Normally I don’t have a session so close to Christmas (it’s that crazy time of year and can be challenging to carve out time for that kind of coaching session, to create the head space for that type of thinking, when you are trying to get sorted for Christmas). However, that session really laid the foundation for kicking off the planning and preparation that has led into the setting of goals. From that session, my mind has been ticking over, I’ve been jotting down thoughts, ideas, feelings since then that have contributed to the goals I have set. With the three weeks off, it has also given me the time and space to work on my goals over a period of time. I’ve come back to them many times during that three week period, re-hashed them, tweaked them, changed words, timeframes and have landed in a much better place with them.
Reframing
This year, my goals have been framed in a way that means they can be achieved without the reliance on others. Yes, others might play a critical role in the goals but the achievement of the goals aren’t reliant on others. After all, we can’t control others and when our goals rely on others we lose control of the ability to achieve those goals. This was also reinforced to me after reading Open, Andre Agassi’s autobiography which was a recommendation from Ryan Shelton from the Imperfects Podcast who I heard speak towards the end of 2023 on living your purpose and redefining what success really meant.
Stay tuned for my learnings from Andre Agassi’s autobiography which I’ll share in my next blog.
So if you have set your goals and feel like you are losing momentum or if you are yet to set your goals for 2024, I hope my learnings might be useful for your journey. Having someone such as a coach or mentor to help you set the right goals and to then hold you accountable has been a game changer for me. I’d highly recommend having someone to coach and mentor you along the way.
