Four Quick Steps to Identifying Your Most Pressing Goals
If you are like me you have several goals you would like to attain. When I think about all of those goals it can pull me in far too many directions and the result is not truly attaining any of them because I am spread too thin. I have an effective method for identifying which ones you want to take action on today, next month, next year and beyond.
Take out several clean sheets of paper and list all of the goals that you want to accomplish personally and professionally. After you have completed your list, ask yourself the following four questions regarding each goal.
1. Am I willing to do what it takes to accomplish this goal?
2. Am I willing to be who I would have to be to accomplish this goal?
3. Am I willing to give up or change whatever has been in the way of my accomplishing this goal?
4. Is my motive for wanting to accomplish this goal in alignment with my top values and principles?
Whenever you answer yes to all four questions, highlight that goal. Once you have reviewed the entire list this way, mark beside each highlighted goal either “one month”, “One year”, “Three years”, “Eight years”, or “over ten years”. Now take out a clean sheet of paper and write at the top “This Month’s Goals” and list your one-month goals. Do the same for each of the other categories.
At the end of your first month take out another sheet of paper and label “This Month’s Goals” write any of the goals from your previous Month’s goals that you are not complete on and look at your one year list and select the goals off of that list that you want to begin focusing on for the next month.
Continue this process each month adding new goals as they come up for you on the appropriate sheets and transferring your most pressing goals to the new “This Month’s Goals” sheet. Keep the “This Month’s Goals” sheet posted in an place that is visible. It can also be very rewarding to keep each month’s goals sheet until the end of the year to review the years accomplishments and prepare for the new year.