6 Things to Consider When Goal Setting

Are you start the new year with a bang or an ease into the new year kind of person? I am pretty hard on myself all year long and I like to ease into the new year. The pressure to start the year with promises to improve seems like more of what I am trying to move away from. 

There are many ways to welcome the new year and one of them is goal setting. The fresh start with a new calendar gives many the feeling that all things are possible. Alternatively, some people chose a word of the year. This gives them guidance and focus. Yet others set out with a list like  “25 for 2025”, made popular by Gretchin Rubin. 

I set intentions with my daughers. We do this by writing our intentions on a post it note at the end of each year and rolling it up like a little scroll before tucking it into an African basket ornament. We pull them out with our Christmas stuff the following year. This has been our practice for years and it’s been a fun way to reflect on the past year and the year ahead. 

This year I noticed some things about this practice. I will share my 6 lessons to consider when goal setting.

Focus on Process Not Outcomes:

This is probably the most important lesson for me this year. For example, “write my book” is always on my list. It feels like failure to have not crossed it off by the end of the year, but there has been no failure at all. My intention was never to complete my book last year or the year before that or the year before that. Writing my book is a great work of art. The work of a lifetime. The process can’t be rushed. The goal is, of course, to keep writing, but also to live in flow. To let it come to me. I plan to be refining, editing, learning, growing, and healing through my writing for as long as it takes. There is no deadline. There is no publishing plan. I am still in the creative process and I want to enjoy this for the foreseeable future. The strategic marketing plan for the book will come in time. The goal is not to complete and publish a best seller by the end of the year, yet I have been holding myself to this impossible expectation and then feeling bad about it each year. I am not doing that this year. In fact, the intention isn’t only to “write my book” it is to live a more creative life. To read more poetry, try new recipes, do more crafts, add in more beauty, listen to new music. I want less consumerism, less social media, and more tapping into my own creative process. I am not a trained artist, but words are my friends and I want to continue to explore what a more creative life looks like for me. That’s the goal, the intention, the word, and the resolution. Creativity.  

Is it really a goal?

Last year I also wrote that I wanted to slow down and spend more time outdoors. This remains true for the new year as well. What I realized is that those are simply my natural desires for this time of year. If I was goal setting in September, a more natural time for me to think about goals honestly it would look different. I would be spending time outside because summer in the midwest is beautiful. I would be riding high from a fun filled summer full of friends, concerts, eating al fresco, travel and more. Slowing down would not be on my list, nor would spending time outside, I would already be doing that. These goals have more to do with the time of year and the ebb and flow of seasons than my annual intentions. September, during back to school season, is a time of year that I like to use for planning, organizing, and strategizing. The time after the holidays lends itself to quiet introspection and reflection, not list making. I don’t want to hold myself to an intention I made in January, when it was only true for a season and not the whole year. 

Small Actions lead to Big Results

As a sober life coach for women, it is literally my job to help people set and take action on their goals. I am in the business of checking in regularly on this. I am not a fan of big dramatic life overhaul because that is inspirational but also overwhelming for most people. Overwhelm leads to burnout, giving up, and a louder inner critic. What I am trained in is the science of change. Real habit change happens in tiny increments. Disrupting patterns and rewiring your brain away from alcohol, or anything takes time. Many of the changes are subtle at first. You start by making small shifts internally before anyone else notices. I have some dramatic before and after pictures of myself, and any who follows me on Instagram has seen them. This is not false advertising but it is the small shifts that lead to big changes. It happens gradually. The person to make the changes is the person in the before picture, the person that sustains them is in the after. I always give credit to my puffy, bloated, sad before pictures. She was the woman that had the courage to take her first wobbly step out of a dark how. She was the one who took the leap to try something different with no guarantee it would work. We love to glamourize instant glow ups, but my radical changes happened slowly, over time. Change is always slower and harder than you want it to be. Remember that and keep going. 

How Do You Want to Feel? 

A goal I had in the past was to start my own business. My coaching ad consulting business Ditched the Drink has been going strong for over 6 years. This is an excellent accomplishment considering 50% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years. Being a boss babe sure sounded nice when I was working from cubicle begging to set my own schedule and it is, but it isn’t without challenges. Being an entrepreneur has fed the insatiable “never good enough dragon” inside of me, always demanding more. I quit drinking, but I found something new to compulsively obsess about and that’s my business. I love it, I really do, but sometimes it’s hard to turn it off and everyone needs to unplug sometimes, even me. I find new measurements to judge myself on, new carrots on a stick to chase in front of me, new ways to punish myself. Especially at the end of the year with tax season approaching, reviewing annual analytics, and Dry January around the corner. A perfect storm of perfectionism, people pleasing, obsessing, whipping, demanding, ruminating and punishing myself. I am so sick of it. This is not why I went into business and this is not how I want to feel. I am terrified of scarcity and I am terrified of growth too. My lesson this year is to focus on how I want to feel, not only what I want to accomplish. I want to feel safe, satisfied, relaxed, and happy. I haven’t felt this way since starting my business. I have felt terrified, chasing, desperate, proud, on turbo drive, full of adrenaline, and more. In Taylor Swift’s words, I “need to calm down”. I want to feel satiable in all areas of my life. It seems if I have had a hunger of any kind, and it has been fed, I immediately beat myself up for having eaten.

Focus on the 80%

Often our vision boards are full of grand vacations, huge achievements, and big endeavors. We want to climb mountains, complete races, win awards, execute projects. That feeling lasts for a minute. The finish line is a second but the race lasts hours, the training lasts months. Instead of putting all your inspirational energy into the big trip, romantize your every day life. An early morning cup of coffee in front of the fireplace while it’s raining. A luxurious bath with bath salts you made. Using a special herb butter to elevate a fancy homecooked meal. Create a vision of what you want your everyday life to look like. Sunrises, yoga, a cozy reading corner, more dog walks at sunset. This are just a few of mine. Whatever yours is, put your ordinary on the vision board and then recognize when you have created it. Something as simple as lighting a candle, can turn an everyday routine into a ritual. As Erma Bombeck says use the good china. I am all about daring to dream, I created a whole business course named Dare to Dream, but step one is to see what you do everyday, consistently, not what you do for applause, which never lasts very long. As someone with a background in sales, I know how fast you can go from hero to zero. It’s best to stick to the beat of your own drum for your own key performance indicators. 

How Will You Measure Success?

Speaking of KPIs, many of my clients meet and exceed their goals and they are still not happy with themselves. Why? Because they are judging themselves by some impossible standards they could never meet. They are wired to beat themselves up no matter what. The “not good enough” feeling is familiar to them and has become comfortable, regular. This is the same for me. If you really want to achieve something you have to recognize when you’ve achieved it. Most of us do met our goals. If you journal you can go back and look at everything you’ve ever wanted and realize you’ve actually gotten most of it. If you haven’t it might be time to invest in coaching support to help you achieve or recognize your achievements. Looking back, I see I now have everything I wanted years ago: sobriety, peace of mind, a gym membership, sober friends, a growing business. I wouldn’t recognize it if I hadn’t written it down. I prayed for these things. Now I pray for other things. Just because I now have new desires doesn’t mean I haven’t achieved the things that past me prayed for. When you make a goal, a list, or an intention be sure to include how you will recognize when you achieve it. How you will celebrate it? How you will pause at this summit and take it all in before resuming your climb? 

Will these lessons support your new year? Let me know in the the comments and reach out for a Complimentary Call 

 if I can support you in achieving your goals. 

For more on goal setting you might like these articles, Goal Setting, Daily Devotionals and Ta-Da List, New Year, Same Bad Mood, The Challenge and Magic of a Reboot, 75 Hard Mental and Fitness Challenge, How to Prepare for Dry January