Life with Dee

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Setting Goals for 2016

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I’m still working on fine-tuning my goals for 2016 but I’m getting close. I thought I might give you a peek into how I am doing this.

Setting Goals for 2016

First of all, I’m asking myself the two questions I mentioned in yesterday’s post:

 

1. What do I want to celebrate from this year?
2. What do I want to celebrate this time next year?

 

To expand upon that a bit, I printed out a couple of worksheets for myself. The first is:

Looking Back on 2015

  1. Successes
  2. Disappointments
  3. Things I’ve learned
  4. Places I’ve gone
  5. Fun things
  6. Miscellaneous thoughts

After I address those topics I think I’ll toss that one in the fireplace. A symbolic gesture signifying the end of the year and that it’s time to move on.

The second worksheet is:

 

Goals Worksheet 2016

  1. Relationships
  2. Spiritual
  3. Health
  4. Home
  5. Business/blog
  6. Personal development
  7. Travel/fun

I have been spending time thinking about the things I want to accomplish in each of those areas of my life. I’ve jotted down some goals in each area and am going to fine-tune those a bit further and discuss some of them with David tonight. For instance, we need to be on the same page for travel goals.

Once I’ve got all my goals determined the next step is to decide how to implement them. Trying to do everything at once is a recipe for failure. I really like the idea of setting quarterly goals as explained in this video:

I’m going to try that this year and see if it helps me achieve more success in meeting my goals. One thing I am going to do is put a reminder of my quarterly goals in my planner at the beginning of each month. I may also set up some reminders to give me alerts on my phone calendar just to help me stay on track.

There are also phone apps which can help. I seem to do better if I don’t allow myself excuses for not doing something each day and can track my efforts. There are several apps for this, such as Daily Goals, Habit Tracker, and many others. Here is a good article describing several:

17 Best Tools and Apps for Building New Habits and Goals

I can’t recall the name but I used one for awhile that was simple and yet effective for motivating me to do certain tasks every day. At some point the app quit working and I deleted it. I’ve downloaded a couple of others and am going to decide which is best for me. If you use something like this I’d love to know which one and why you like it. Leave me a comment, please!

Finally, I am going to schedule a review period in my planner once a month to look back over my goals and evaluate how I’m doing.

My hope is that I can be part of that elusive 8% who actually achieve their New Year’s resolutions. I can always hope, right?

Happy New Year! 



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  2. Cherie says

    Deanna – you’re a woman after my own heart! 🙂 I’m a big goal setter – monthly and quarterly – and I have various ways to keep track. I also journal a lot so I write my goals in my journal and then have my goal tracker there, as well. One tool I used for planning last year was Susannah Conway’s Unravelling the Year Ahead 2015 workbook. It was a great exercise to help me set my intentions and goals. Yesterday I re-read my completed workbook and saw how I had accomplished much of what I set out to do (and realized that some of the things I didn’t accomplish really weren’t all that important to me in the end). I’m going to start working on her Unravelling 2016 workbook this week to help me fine tune my goals and look beyond the first quarter. (Here’s a link to the workbook: http://www.susannahconway.com/2015/12/were-coming-for-you-2016/)

    I’ve been looking for apps to help keep me on task but turns out my phone doesn’t have the latest software for many of them (and is too old to update). Looks like I’ll be phone shopping soon…I’m not sure if an app is right for me because I still prefer paper and pencil. I’ve been buying some small journals at Target (they come 3 to a pack and are made from recycled paper) and find that they’re just right to use as monthly goals journals. I’ve already printed out and pasted Unravelling 2016 in one and will use is as my January goals journal.

    Wishing you much success on your goals in 2016!

    Reply

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