How I set my 2017 goals & how I’m doing so far
Over the holiday break I took a delightful Readtreat in Sonoma County. I highly recommend the process of reading and discussing great articles for days on end. But one of the best parts of Readtreat 2016 was the day I spent on Dec 31 setting my goals for the upcoming year.
Getting There
I’ve always looked in awe at friends, peers, and professional crushes who spend their end-of-year time in reflection, introspection, and goal-setting.
It looked so glamorous, so studious, so accomplished. Not really me.
Not to say I’m not driven, that’s never been my problem. But taking stock of “the whole picture” felt out of my grasp.
But a lot changed this year—a great job, a world-class boss, a wonderful home with loving roommates and a swell of dear friends. Maybe I hit some rung on Maslow’s hierarchy, or maybe I’ve Become an Adult™ by some measure, but whatever the reason, I decided to tackle this whole thing of “Goals” and make it work for me.
The systems I used
One issue I’ve had with goals is everyone has the “perfect process.” Like the latest fad diet, the Perfect You is just one system away!
Hogwash.
Life is ambiguous. Accomplishing things is hard. There’s no one weird trick that will set you on the exact path to victory, success, and happiness. You’re going to struggle, just like everyone who makes these systems, and you’ve got to find some combination that works for you.
I’ve been collecting goal systems as I find them interesting, and in prepping for my goal-setting-in-the-woods I printed out a number of these resources and brought them along for the exercise.
- Don’t break the chain
- Morning Pages
- The Miracle Morning
- Your best year ever
- Be/Do/Have
- How I Meter/Set/Achieve Goals
After reading all the material, I pulled the best bits from both and set up the following:
- My 4 core values
- The 5 major life buckets I’m focusing on
- Be/Do/Have—on a 1-year, 5-year, and lifetime horizon
- And lastly, my daily, weekly, monthly plans for achieving in 2017
My 4 Core Values
In picking where to start, I decided to follow the advice from Your best year ever, which encourages you to begin with a grounded sense of who you are & what you value. The last time I reviewed my values I was barely old enough to drive a car—high time I revisited this!
I went through some of the exercises the author recommends and arrived at the following as the 4 attributes that bring me the most happiness, fulfillment, and pride:
- Achievement
- Learning
- Open mindedness
- Play
Note: After digging down to this level, I found the process of picking what goals I wanted to focus on to be pretty smooth! I highly recommend starting at this level!
The 5 Major Buckets of Focus in my life
Also from Your best year ever, I took the idea of narrowing my focus to things that fall into no more than 5 buckets. Picking just 5 wasn’t easy—there are a gajillion things I want to do! So I ended up staying pretty vague/broad in my choices:
- Professional accomplishments at Yammer
- Professional accomplishments outside of Yammer
- Mental fortitude
- Physical ability
- Loving on friends & family
Of all the planning I did, this piece feels the least valuable. We’ll see as the year wears on if I use this meaningfully to select some activities & opt out of others. One month in and I haven’t seen the real benefit of this.
Be/Do/Have
This cascading system of objectives asks you to set lifetime goals, which then trickle down to 5-year goals, down to 1 year, down the the quarter.
This process took me a hearty few hours—even after doing a fair amount of value setting and introspection.
Hours well spent.
I found clarity in starting from what I wanted in my lifetime—but those desires are scary to think about. You have to consider what’s possible in just one life, you have to face your inevitable death. Heavy.
I may have fudged some of the syntax here and there to make it all fit, but here’s where I’m aiming:
In my life
I want to Be:
- A grandparent
- A force for good
- Exciting to be around (for literally every type of person)
I want to Do:
- A marathon/iron man
- Start a company that’s both for-profit & for-good
- Impact or make public policy decisions
I want to Have:
- Enough $ to retire for adventures at a reasonable age
- A home where my friends and family gather regularly
- A personal retreat in the woods somewhere
In Five Years
I want to Be:
- A mother (just at the cusp of 5 years!)
- On the board of a for-profit
- In control of a calm mind
I want to Do:
- Spoken at more than 1 international conference (by invite)
- Read 150 books
- Effect change in the gender ratios at Yammer/MSFT (up all levels of management)
I want to Have:
- Climbing equipment for setting my own routes (and use it)
- A book that I wrote on my library shelf
- $ — - in the Baby Fund**
** A financial buffer I’m building so I can afford children whether I have a partner for that endeavor or not.
This year
I want to Be:
- Loving an encouraging to those around me
- An influencer and leader in the world of product management
- Promoted
I want to Do:
- Public vocal performance with Sarah, Heather & Jack.
- Spar in a sanctioned fight
- Advise at least 3 startups
I want to Have:
- My own backpacking equipment
- $ — - in the Baby Fund
- $ — - saved for retirement
Funny how life looks when you lay it out like that….
My daily, weekly, and monthly plans
What’s the break point between a plan and a goal? Hard to define exactly, but these shorter term objectives feel more Plan-ish and less Goal-y.
On a daily cadence, I pulled from Don’t break the chain, Morning Pages, and The Miracle Morning. The weekly & monthly ones came from… my mind. It’s basically what I thought it would take to get the right cadence for my year-long, 5-year, and lifetime goals.
While it’s too early to start looking at my goals on those longer horizons, it’s been a whole month, so I can look at these shorter term objectives and see how I’m tracking.
DAILY:
❌ 5 minutes of silence (“meditation”)
❌ Saying my affirmations
❌ Exercise (25 pushups on the days that I don’t have kickboxing)
❌ Brain vomit 500 words onto a page
❌ Clean the apartment for 3 minutes
✅ Text my accountability group
WEEKLY:
❌ Check in on my five buckets of life focus
✅ Spend Sunday evening writing
✅ Spend Monday evening writing
❌ Spend early Friday evening to do networking follow up tasks.
❌ Go through my evernote GTD system and clean up cruft
MONTHLY:
❌ Meet in person with my accountability group
✅ Publish 2 blog pieces (this is #3 this month!)
✅ Read 2 books
✅ Financial check in on budget and savings
Meh. Not great. But not too shaby, either. Looks like it’s a bit too much over all, and my idea for a morning routine is failing dramatically!
I’m not a morning person, never was. Turns out—I’m still not a morning person in 2017. Ha.
Changing it up is not failing
I put a lot of work into building a morning routine so I that would do more with my days & weeks. Turns out, even without the new morning routine, I’m doing a bunch with my days anyway! I’m hitting a lot of the velocity I wanted to get from my boosted morning, while effectively failing 100% at how I thought I would get there.
But here’s a secret: The point of a goal system isn’t to follow the system, it’s to accomplish more!
So, 1/12 of the way through my year and I rewriting some of the little rocks in my life. They aren’t helping with the big ones, and that’s really the point right?
I’m going to stick with most of the weekly & monthly stuff, and I’ll check back at the end of the year to see how this all works for me. In the meanwhile, I’d love to hear what goal setting works for you!
If you enjoyed this read, please pass on a little 💚 … it helps me reach my goals!
