2019: ARE YOU PREPARED TO CRUSH YOUR GOALS?

I love goals! Goals solidify our intentions for the future and aid in providing clarity for where we are headed.  

As we head into 2019 I would encourage you to trade all of those new year’s resolutions in for a few solid goals. What’s the difference? For starters, goals include a well thought out plan with an end result in mind. Resolutions are much more open-ended.

One of my goals for 2019 is to kick my sugar addiction to the curb (the struggle is real, friends). I have researched the topic and have a plan in place. I have already started making recipes that have helped other people step away from sugar. Contrast this with a new year's resolution, where on December 31st I can eat all the sugary crap I’d like and the next day, cut out sugar altogether. I give myself a month before I quit. Why? I had no plan! All I had was a black and white resolution.

Today I’m going to share with you a method I’ve found success with, in laying down some serious goals…

A few months ago I was really having a hard time with goal setting. I felt overwhelmed with all I hoped to accomplish and I wasn’t sure where to start. Do I start with one goal and complete it or attempt to make progress on multiple goals at the same time? With all of these ideas for things, I wanted to accomplish how was I going to hone in on the most important ones, set achievable goals and actually make progress on them?

It just so happened that I was listening to Amy Porterfield’s podcast, “Online Marketing Made Easy” when I found the perfect solution. The podcast episode was all about how to launch a physical product. Amy’s guest, Laura Casey was sharing about how her goal setting and maintenance product came to be. Laura had created a system for herself as a way to chip away little by little on her larger goals when she realized the product would be useful to others as well. This is how her product, Powersheets, and her brand, Cultivate What Matters, were born.

After listening to this podcast I Immediately picked up my own 6-month Powersheets planner and I haven’t looked back! These last 6 months I have made more progress on my goals than ever before. I am not an affiliate for Cultivate What Matters (Whole Assistant isn’t big enough yet) but if you want to gain clarity on your goals and subsequently crush them, I highly recommend you look into the system.

Check out the below video where I will give you a few of my most valuable goal setting tips based on the Cultivate What Matters system. 

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Check out the transcription:

Hey, guys. I’m at Annie of wholeassistant.com, and today, we are talking all about goal setting. I’m going to share with you a big goal that I have, how that contrasts from a resolution, and a goal planning method that I absolutely love and I’m sure you will, too. My big goal for 2019 is to kick my sugar addiction. I have cravings and then in addition to that, I’m an emotional eater, so whenever I have a victory or I’m feeling really high on life or something went really well, I celebrate by going and getting a pastry or a cookie.

Then, when I feel sad or upset about something or even just stressed, I will eat sugar, too. That is my big goal is to delve into my emotions and actually deal with them instead of eating them or drowning them in food. That’s my big goal for the year, and if we contrast that with a resolution where I can eat absolutely everything I want on December 31st, but then January 1st comes and I have to eat no sugar for a year, I know I’ll fail within a month because there’s no plan there. There’s no course of action, whereas, with this goal, I’ve done research. I bought a book on it. I’ve started making recipes that this gal talks about in this book that has helped other people step down from sugar.

I really do have a plan, and then for the emotional aspect, I plan on incorporating lots of meditation and journaling to actually deal with those emotions and process them in a healthy way, so that’s my big goal in 2019.

Now, I want to share with you a method I used to arrive at that goal and has been really helpful for me in the last six months. Six months ago, I heard on a podcast about the Cultivate What Matters PowerSheets. Lara Casey, the founder of this company, was doing an interview with this gal that I love to listen to, Amy Porterfield, and I just had to get them for myself, so I did. I got the six-month planner, and I found it to be really transformative and helpful for me to lay down some good goals, and I get laser-focused as a result of going through this process.

Now, I would be an affiliate for Cultivate What Matters and PowerSheets because I believe in them so much, but Whole Assistant isn’t even big enough, so I’m promoting this product because I truly believe in it and because it’s truly been transformative to me and my life and getting really clear on what it is I want to accomplish.

Recently, I did a modified version of the PowerSheets with my executive to kind of help him get clear on what he wanted to accomplish in 2019, and so I’m going to share with you the steps that I walked him through. This is just my modified version for him, and I know that this is really girly, so I didn’t even show him this like, “Yeah, fill this out and do this.”; No, no, I just walked him through the process and we did it together, actually, and it was a great exercise.

The first step that you want to do when you’re trying to figure out your goals and what you want your goals to be is to write down everything that went well in the last year, so in 2018, write down everything that went really, really well and write it down. You definitely want to get this outside your brain so that you can look at it, and I’ll explain why in a minute. Then, you also want to write down your challenges in 2018, everything that didn’t go smoothly or that was a challenge to you or that you were hoping to accomplish that maybe you didn’t, so you also want to write down those things, as well.

Then, you’re going to write down your lessons learned in 2018, things you learned that you were surprised by, things you learned that we’re predictable. Just write them down. Then, things left unresolved. What didn’t you accomplish that you were hoping to accomplish? What still feels like it’s stirred up and needs to be settled or resolved? Write that stuff down, too. Then, next what you’re going to do is you’re going to list out the following things in the following areas of your life, and then on a scale of one to 10, rate your satisfaction, 10 being really satisfied, one being not satisfied at all.

Here are the areas that I want you to do this with, I also want you to write down why. Family, spouse, partner, significant other, finances, friends, recreation, spirituality and personal growth, and fitness and self-care. Again, you’re going to rate on a scale of one to 10 your satisfaction in each area and write out why behind that. Again, those areas are family, spouse, partner, or significant other, finances, friends, recreation, spirituality and personal growth, all one area, and fitness and self-care all in one area, as well.

Okay, so then, this should give you a pretty good idea. I want you to look back over the arc of everything you’ve written. You’ll probably notice threads or themes, and from there, I want you to brainstorm ideas for goals and write them all down. It doesn’t matter how crazy they are. It doesn’t matter how big they are. This is not a self-regulation part of this process, so just write it all down. Then, I want you to pick the most important ones, the ones you feel more excited or challenged by, and then from there, I want you to make two lists. I want you to draw a line down the center of your piece of paper and make two lists. I’m saying yes to for 2019, and then on the other side, I’m saying no to for 2019.

Now, this part was just so transformative to me because I had so many goals six months ago. I wanted to be fluent in Spanish. I wanted to launch Whole Assistant. I wanted to ... I don’t know I had so many ideas and I want to get my finances in order, and I wanted to work out five times a week, and I wanted to eat healthier. This yes/no piece of this process really, really helped me to hone in and get laser-focused. I said because I really wanted the last six months to be strong with Whole Assistant and to get my processes and procedures down with Whole Assistant, and I didn’t have a whole lot of bandwidth because I have a full-time job, right, and I wanted to do well at that job. It’s not that I’m not invested in my job. I love my job, so I really wanted to do well and take my career to the next level at work during my day job, too.

I actually, on my list, said, “I am saying yes to working out two days a week,” and “I’m saying no to working out five days a week hardcore.” Now if I get an extra walk in with my husband, that’s great, but that’s a bonus, right, and I’m not going to feel pressured to do that. I also said, “I’m saying no to studying Spanish for the next six months,” so anytime that thoughts pop into my head over the last six months, I can just dismiss it because I decided to say no to that, but only for the next six months.

You can do this process for the next six months or a year. I’ve done mine for a year, so I’ve laid out something really great goals for 2019, but I have some that I’m starting midyear, so yeah. With this sugar goal, I wrote it down. I said “I’m going to start the research and start this process on January 7th,” with the intention and goal of not even thinking about sugar a year from now, not even it crossing my mind as my go-to for when I get excited about something to celebrate or when I get really, really stressed or sad about something.

That is my process and I found it was really helpful to walk through the process with my executive. Feel free to steal that to walk through with your executive, or to walk through for yourself. I would definitely recommend walking through for yourself first. Honestly, guys, if you can get this Cultivate What Matters planner, they’ve got some really great extra things in here like they’ve got a monthly checklist for you, and they’ve got different monthly check-ins. It’s not an actual planner, so you don’t have months written out for you to actually plan your days, but they’ve got monthly checklists, monthly check-ins, and your goals written here in one place, and I just found it to be really, really, really helpful.

That is it. My last Facebook live for 2018. I’m going to be taking a bit of a break until 2019 until mid-January where I’ll be in full swing ready to go, locked and loaded. We’re doing some great things in 2019 including what I call my “Resource Corner”, so once a month, I’m going to be interviewing someone who I feel like would be a great resource for assistants and administrative professionals, so stay tuned for that. I really cannot wait to collaborate with some of my colleagues who are in this space of encouraging and empowering administrative professionals as well as some recruiters and things like that to really help you up your game. I hope you guys have a great holiday season and a happy new year, and I’m looking forward to next year and all that it brings and to tackling my goals in 2019, and I hope you are, as well. Take care.