Are you still aligned with the goals that you had set for yourself in January? Have you adopted those new habits that would encourage you to achieve? Are there obstacles that have prevented you from making any progress? Asking yourself these and other probing questions will allow time for reflection and enable you to take a broader perspective on whether your goals are still congruent with your values and your why.
Checking in with your goals at the end of each quarter is key to both goal orientation and attainment. So many of us allocate the time and energy at the beginning of the year to set big, hairy, audacious goals only to abandon them a few weeks later. Quite often, we even neglect to align our goals with our why and completely disregard the way we want to feel both whilst pursuing and once we're achieving.
There are a variety of tools for you to explore in terms of managing your goals, but where do you start and how can you start right now?
Schedule ~ an hour of time in your calendar to review your goals each month and determine if they remain imperatives for you to pursue. This gives you the opportunity to both track and reward yourself for your progress, make any refinements and adjust accordingly.
Review your goals ~ have you set milestones for each of your goals and are you progressing through those milestones? If not, and your goals remain priorities, set chronological milestones that result in goal attainment; this will also activate your reward system which increases your motivation for continued goal striving.
Identify obstacles ~ what (if anything) has been preventing you from gaining traction and making progress towards your goals? What do you need to stop doing in order to accelerate forward momentum? Have you made the necessary changes to your environment that will facilitate goal orientation and realisation? Have you been demonstrating any potential self-sabotaging behaviours that may be inhibiting your goals?
Enlist an accountability partner ~ whether it's a colleague, a mate, a professional coach, having someone to hold you accountable correspondingly leads to an increase in your motivation and efforts. It also offers you a different perspective a potentially different pathways to goal attainment.
Balance self-compassion with tough love ~ Remind yourself that goals are a process and that occasionally you'll have to take two steps back to move forward. By the same token, don't get caught up in making excuses for failing to advance. Too many of us get stuck in paralysis through analysis when it's truly best to choose excellence over perfection.
Evidence tells us that goal setting and orientation triggers our behaviour, it provides us with focus, momentum and mastery. Goals encourage us to engender self-discipline and personal growth and whilst setting them properly is important, following through is what leads us to engagement and our sense of meaning and fulfilment, and ultimately our success.
So how are you tracking with your goals for the year? Are you on your way to finishing what you started?
Kirsten works with individuals, teams and organisations through initiatives in leadership, performance and well-being. Contact her today to tap into your potential!