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I don't know where to start with planning for 2013?

14/1/2013

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Have you set any new years resolutions? Chances are if you have, most of them will already be invalid or broken and we are only 15 days into the beginning of 2013.

Why bother:
Goals need to be written down and reviewed regularly, and beginning by reviewing the past year, helps us identify what worked/didn't work so we can learn what to do next time. If your a small business owner then this planning process becomes even more important - how do you measure success if you don't know what your aiming for? We are also notorious for moving on after achieving something without haven't taken the time to review and celebrate what we have accomplished.

A favourite blogger of mine - Chris Guillebeau has a great process he uses to reflect on the past year and then plan for the year ahead , starting with the questions - What went well and What didn't go well? 

I attempted to start this at the end of 2011 last year but didn't get very far, so this year I've made a conscious effort to reflect, capture my learnings from 2012 and record my goals for 2013. I really liked Chris's process but when it came to planning my 2013 goals, I got a bit stuck and started doing some research as to what other people do and combined it into something which made it easier for me.

Steps to follow for annual planning:
Take some time out, where you can concentrate to reflect and then plan for this coming year.

  1. Go through your calender, Facebook and other social network posts from 2012 - remind yourself what happened, what are the key things that stood out, things you did or people you met? (Thanks to Kerrie Phipps for this great suggestion)                                      
  2. Review your goals from last year - did you achieve them, what did you learn, what worked/didn't work?
  3. Note down and answer any other questions to help you reflect.  I liked Meg Appleby's questions. 
  4. Set new goals - make sure you write them down and have specific measures in place. Still not sure what to do, my previous post on goal setting may help? I also liked this 2 hour plan for helping me with the measures.
  5. Prioritise your goals and start creating an action list for each one. Its good to have 3 main goals to focus on every quarter.

I would find doing this all in one go a bit overwhelming, so I have done it in stages over the past 10 days or so. Also this requires quite a bit of brain power so if you are feeling stuck, when we walk away or focus on something different our unconscious mind is still busy contemplating your thoughts, so you may come up with more information each time you come back. 

Saying that, you don't want to make this a month long process, so you need to identify what complete looks like.

Other things you could do:
  1. SWOT analysis - take a good look at your business or personal life right now, or get an external perspective and start an action plan to move forward with
  2. Mark some time out at least quarterly to review your goals
  3. Share your goals with others
  4. Create a dream or vision board to help your goals really come to life and stick them somewhere you will see them everyday
  5. Celebrate your achievements from the past year

So have you done your planning for 2013
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Goal setting - putting your pen to paper

24/4/2011

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I have always been keen on achieving, learning and creating goals for myself. However, I always found it really difficult in actually committing to what I wanted my goals to be, so I never seemed to get much further than thinking about it. 

We all know the benefits of goal setting and have heard about making it SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.  We also have heard many times to make sure you write your goals down.  All sounds very easy in theory, but how do you even decide what goals you want?

When I took on my first coach, I finally had the opportunity to decide what goals I wanted and better yet I got to the step of making them SMART and writing them down.  So what made this process different to what I was trying to do before?

  1. We started off by reviewing all the areas of my life and applying a rating of where I thought I was in each of those areas right now
  2. We then looked at the areas where the rating was lowest and picked 3 areas to focus on
  3. With each of the 3 areas, I then had to decide what would change the rating to 100%
  4. From there I had to then take those ideas and turn them into a SMART goal, with a clear measure and timeframe for each
  5. Then commit to it – write it down on paper
  6. Finally start getting excited about what it would mean to achieve these goals

Simple right? So how many of us actually even get past step 1 – probably not many of us. So the next question is what do you need to do differently to get through all the six steps to come out with 3 clear exciting goals.

I encourage you to have a go, and let me know how you get on – did you manage to come up with 3 clear goals, what worked well, what didn’t work well? Good luck!

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