Do you make resolutions every January? Do you keep them? Do you sniff your nose at the silly people who make ‘resolutions’ but do the exact same thing with ‘goals?’ Goal setting is useful at any point in the year.

It’s common for people – and businesses – to set goals but not reach them. Why? They don’t have the appropriate systems in place to help them achieve those goals, and without the proper foundations, it’s understandable that so many goals are left unmet.

Libby Spears, founder of Bravo cc, joined YGM for our January ‘TRC Talks’ to discuss goal setting, and maybe more importantly, goal achievement. Spears is a keynote speaker, facilitator, and coach, and she gave us and our viewers lots of important information.

While our discussion with Spears took place on the last day of January, she suggested that might actually be the perfect time to review goals for the year and not, as many might assume, already 31 days late.

“January is its own thing,” she said. “It’s almost a stand-alone month. February is a good time to start.”

Get Started

Spears suggested instead of setting resolutions, choose three words that define how you would like the year to go. Goal setting is more achievable than resolutions. “I want to create a life for me rather than a life that happens to me,” she said.

These three words should:

• Speak to you
• Energize you
• Motivate you

And then, in looking at your three words, consider how they affect what Spears calls your ‘7 Areas of Well-being.’ How do you approach your words in relation to these seven categories?

• Your relationships
• Your career
• Your spiritual life (in whatever manner you define that)
• Your health
• Your education
• Your finances
• Your hobbies (things you enjoy and make no money from doing)

Self-Reflection

Spend some time with your three words and these seven categories. A time of personal reflection will be necessary in order to really know that you have the right words for you for this particular time. This is true whether you are doing this exercise for yourself individually or for your chamber or organization. So often, people forget that the individual mindset affects the corporate/business mindset.

“This is not a time management system,” Spears said. “This is an energy management system. Are you willing to commit to this? If so, you will find the time.”

Whether you call your intentions ‘goals’ or ‘resolutions’ or a word of your choosing, make sure you are able to show your commitment in measurable ways. Try smaller goals than big year-long goals. Spears suggests quarterly goals. Re-evaluate at the end of the quarter and determine how you want to proceed.

• Do you want to continue with the same three words and build upon them?
• Do you want to keep one of the words but add two new ones?

With the proper self-reflection, you can continue to build upon these initial words throughout the year.

Spears suggests that you choose something that will allow you to feel powerful when you accomplish it and that you put people and processes in place to assist you in your quest. In truth, in corporations and businesses, people are often assigned goals to meet. She suggests you envision the most powerful version of yourself and how that version of you would work to meet those goals.

Ask yourself, “what is my purpose?” and “how can I best meet this goal?”

Calendar It

When you commit to your words and the practice of achieving their meaning, you need to work it into your calendar every week to self-reflect on how the process is going. “Make it sacred,” Spears said.

Snap It

Create a photo album in your phone to reflect your chosen words, and every time you take a photo that reminds you of one of your words, add it to your album. At the end of your time period, you will have an album dedicated to your journey. “You are creating a living document of your words,” Spears said.

Don’t Go It Alone

Give someone permission to hold you accountable. We all need someone to ask us where we are in our journey, to hold us to task. Spears said often when she asks CEOs who has permission to hold them accountable, often the answer is ‘no one.’ Having someone with that permission is vital to our ability to grow and reach our goal setting potential.

If you would like more information about Spears and Bravo cc, you can find it here. If you’d like to watch the video of January’s ‘TRC Talks,’ it is available on the YGM YouTube channel.