Goal getting

A few things I use to help me set (and occasionally reach) my goals

It’s that time of year. Goal-setting.

In fact, I might even be sharing this a little late. Often the end and beginning of the year are noisy with people making their resolutions, setting their goals, and telling the world about all of it. But when the excitement of a new calendar fades away, sometimes the excitement around goals fade along with it.

It will come as no surprise to any long-term subscribers to this list that I love this time of year. I spoke last year about how new year energy feels fresh and exciting. The challenge for me is always to keep that momentum going and to actually make the goals on my list come to life.

There are a few things that I do to make this happen (or give it my best shot), so I thought I would share them here in case useful.

1/ Only set kind goals

This comes from Han Bullivant’s excellent, but sadly retired, January Book, which I used to work through at the start of each year, and it’s all about making sure that your goals are not sticks you are using to beat yourself up with.

When you look at the goals you are setting yourself this year, are they things that fill you with excitement and anticipation? Or are they things you feel you *should* be doing for some external reason?

So, one of my goals this year is to run 5k. My reason for this is because I have really loved getting more into fitness over the last few years, but my lung capacity is still pretty poor. I used to really enjoy running, but stopped because it wasn’t great for my shoulders or knees. Now, with the strength training I’ve been doing, I think my body is up for it, and I’d like to get back into it.

I feel excited about doing this. The runs I started before Christmas felt amazing, and I have a great app which is giving me a slow-but-steady build up to help me achieve this goal.

But this could *easily* be an unkind goal I set myself. I might hate running and feel like it’s something I see other people doing, so I should be doing it, too. If I felt that way, it would be really hard to motivate myself to do it, when there is so much other stuff calling for my attention. It could also turn into an unkind goal. If my shoulders and knee start to get impacted by the running, but I carry on anyway, because I have the goal I’ve said I’m going to hit - that’s no longer a helpful thing to aim for.

2/ Hold goals lightly

With that in mind - I set a lot of goals in different areas of my life, and some of them I achieve and yay for those goals, but many of them fall by the wayside when life gets in the way or when I realise I don’t want to prioritise those things. There are some goals that I set year after year and I still haven’t met them. People seem to think that I am great at hitting my goals, and I am - sometimes.

I’m writing this not as someone who has done all the things they have set out to do. I try and fail at stuff all the time. Or I try and decide I don’t actually want to do that thing after all. Or I reach my goal way outside of the initial time frame I set myself. But I also try and succeed from time to time, and I guess those are the things people remember.

I try very, very hard not to become fixated on the end goals themselves. If I do, I notice they stop being kind goals and things I feel good about, and instead become measures of how much I am not doing or how far I haven’t come.

3/ I focus on the actions, not the goals

If I want to run 5k, I need to run 1-2 times a week. If I want to save more money, I need to put that money aside every week. If I want to get more clients, I need to show how I can help authors on a regular basis. I do this through the content that I share on here, on Instagram and within The Empowered Author Facebook group.

What do you need to do every day / week / month to reach the goals you have set for yourself? Focus on those actions, and then review the overarching goal on a less regular basis. What progress have you made toward your goal in 1 or 3 months? If none, why not? Is this goal less of a priority than something else that’s taking up your time? Is there something holding you back from achieving it? What actions can you take to unblock yourself?

Another reason I focus on the actions, not the goals is because at the end of the day, even if I don’t hit the ultimate goal, the actions are getting me closer than I would be otherwise.

My general motto in life is ‘the journey is the destination’, and this goes for goal setting as much as it does anything else. Find ways to enjoy the actions, and you’ll have more fun with them, and give yourself a better chance of reaching your end goal.

4/ I have lots of nifty apps to help me

I like checking things off, so the final part of the puzzle are to look around for nifty apps and other fun tools to help me.

• I use this Notion set up (there are lots of free ones available on the Notion website, but this one helps me track all of my personal and professional activities.

• I make a vision board on paper and digitally in Pinterest (this year they have a vision boarding tool - did you know that?).

• I use Runna to help with my couch to 5k ambitions.

• I use Tody to help me keep on top of house cleaning (which in turn means I don’t need to hire a cleaner, which is where my savings money is going to be coming from this year).

• I use a bullet journal so that I can physically colour in some things like income and savings.

I know that doing these things gives me a little tick of satisfaction, and that helps me enjoy doing the thing itself. But that might not work for you! If you have never taken Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies quiz, I would definitely take this, as it (and the associated book*) has lots of helpful suggestions for how to make habits stick, depending on your personality type.

So - that’s how I approach goal setting. What works (or doesn’t) for you? Also - did you write a 2024 goals post on Substack or on your blog (or elsewhere)? PLEASE share it in the comments, as they are one of my absolute favourite types of content to read!