2013 goals, dreams, BHAGS

Happy near year! 2012 was a year of learning, growth, and life craziness and we welcome the new year as a challenge to make 2013 just as freakin’ crazy as 2012 was. In planning for 2013, I’ve decided that my goal writing should be more direct and detailed. Less like resolutions (which never work) and more like actual goals.
A resolution is a promise, a goal is an achievement, an end. Plus it just makes more sense to me.

The problem still with goal setting is that it means nothing without some sort of applicable steps to take towards it. Practicality and daily,weekly,monthly, or quarterly objectives in goal setting are just as important as the goal itself. It’s really easy to do this sort of thing this time of year. We see the reset button and we sense the fresh start in the air. But as the year goes on we usually fall off the wagon in one way or another.

This is how my year usually looks when pertaining to goals and motivation to pursue them daily:

1. January- March- 95% motivation (“This is awesome! I love me some 2013!”)
2. April-June- 80% motivation (“Crap! I forgot to do this. I’ll catch it next month”)
3. July-September- 70% motivation (“Where did I put that goal sheet?”)
4. October-December- 35% motivation With a jump to 50% mid-December when I realize I’ve been sucking for the past two months. (“I’ll do better with that next year.”)

This steady decline in sticking to the plan has to with several things the least of which is not burnout or just real life “stuff” happening along the way. This year I’m trying a different approach. Instead of letting 2013 get ahead of me I’m going to beat it to the punch.

On Jon Acuff’s Blog, He mentions a 52/7 plan: Working on goals set in the 7 core areas of your life (Spiritual, Financial, Physical, Social, Mental, Career, Family) in 52 day chunks. Making the goals more manageable and much more scalable and also eliminating the pressure of huge year long goals.

I like that. I like the idea of getting to the end of one of these 52 chunks and looking back to see what was working, what’s not, and what needs to be expanded upon or continued for the next 52 days. So I started with Jon’s model from his blog and added space at the top from my “overall goals and bHAGs” for the year because I still want to see those written out. 🙂

Here is the outline/prompt with a few examples:

GOALS 2013

List of Long term/Short term Goals, Dreams, and BHAGS

Long term Goals (2013-2015)-

Daily Steps-

Short Term (Janurary-March)-

Daily Steps-

BHAGs-

52/7 

Financial
Eat 2 meals at home 5 days a week

Physical
Sleep 7 hours 80% of the 52 days.
Work out 4 days every week.

Social

Make plans to have coffee and hang with someone once a week.
Return my Facebook messages/comments in less than 24 hours

Mental
Read two new books each month. (starting with Platform)
Listen to 1 Podcast a day (EntreLeadership, Shoot to Kill, Accidental Creative)

Career
Respond to every work related email and Facebook within 24 hours.
Have purposeful creative experiences once a week

Family
Two Date nights a month
Call talk to my grandfather once a week

Spiritual

Read the first 52 days of a Read Through The Bible in 52 days program.

The biggest goal I have this year is to maintain no less than 85% motivation and consistency when pertaining to goals I’ve set for the year. I know my most productive months are January-June. That’s 50% of the year. What would happen if I used that other 50% of the year last year instead of falling off course? Or even just an extra 25%? This year, 52 days at a time, let’s see what the other side looks like.