2023 was the year after Argentina won the World Cup championship Qatar 2022. So, it’s very difficult to compete with that beautiful moment. However, 2023 was good as well. Now it’s time to think about what we did this year and what we will do the following year.
Don’t worry, I don’t want to write about what I did and what I am going to do in 2024. Instead, I would like to share with you my experience and to tell you about how I set my goals and objectives every year and why you should do this activity even though it takes a lot of time.
So, let’s go for it.
Why?
The main purpose of setting goals is that you must stop and think. When you make a reflection about what do you want to achieve next year and why, you are meditating about yourself and your work. Our routines are too fast in this modern world. Therefore, it is important to stop sometimes and be contemplative just for a while.
First of all, it is important to take time to analyze what went well and wrong this year. If you had set objectives for 2023, go back to your notes and read them. You need to remember what you wanted to do last year when you wrote all that. Try to remember why you set those goals and what was your north or where you were going to.
If you didn’t take notes last year, it doesn’t matter. Try to remind yourself last year and write a list of what you wanted to do.
It is important -perhaps the most important in the analysis of this current year- to thank or celebrate what went well. Be proud of your success. It doesn’t matter if it is a small step or a big jump, you should always be proud of yourself. This will help in motivation. You will always have one or two things that were excellent.
After cheers, try to understand what went wrong and why. Perhaps an unexpected project came and switched the path, this could be bad or good maybe was better than your previous plan. You don’t need to judge now, the purpose of this is to learn. If you found the reason it was wrong, it would be useful.
If you take your time to do this, you will have two things to celebrate. On one hand, you stop your routine for a while. On the other hand, you will learn something useful. But the most important thing is that you are ready to continue.
What?
The next step is to think about what you want to do. A typical mission and vision for a company but for yourself or your team.
Doesn’t matter if you are thinking about your personal goals or your team’s you can always open the discussion to anybody you want. If you are the team leader, you could talk with all the team members to talk about your ideas. I think you should always bring something already planned or a seed to bootstrap the meeting. But take in mind that if you are going to discuss with your team, your ideas must be open to change.
If you are imagining personal goals instead, you can decide by yourself. What do you want to do? Or… Picture yourself in 5 years. Where are you? What are you doing?
However, you will always need to talk with third parties. Family, friends, your manager, boss, your peers. First of all, you will need some advice from them. They would have another point of view that is necessary to be more realistic. Sometimes we were so close with ourselves looking at a tree that we missed the forest.
If you can, try to think -at least- two completely different paths. Then think about what you need to reach the finish line of each of them.
Also, you can make a list of pros and cons of each one.
For example, I would like to work in finance, gaming or robotic industry. There are three different paths. What do I need to get in each of those industries? Can I travel through all of them at the same time? What are the pros and cons of each one?
Finally, maybe you fully did this exercise last year and you have already thought about what you want to do. In that case, you just need to rethink if you still want to do the same. Perhaps it was an important change in your life or in the world and you just need to fix your path. Take a time to think about this.
Those paths are you thinking are called goals. A goal is where we want to reach. But for getting there, we must get over many obstacles. It could be a very long road. Therefore, it is useful to split this goal into different parts. They call objectives.
How?
Now you have just thought, and you know what you want to do. Let’s think about how we can reach there. The idea is to divide what do you want to do or what do you want to reach in different mini steps. With those you have set a draft list of your objectives.
Smart Goals
SMART is an acronym that you can use to guide your goal setting. Its criteria is commonly attributed to Peter Drucker's Management by Objectives concept.
To make sure your goals are clear and reachable, each one should be:
Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
Achievable (agreed, attainable).
Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).
For example:
_“I want to speak in English.” _
Wrong! This is a wish.
_“I want to speak in English next year.” _
It starts to shape into an objective. But you need to be measurable and specific. It is possible to speak English in a year with too much effort. But it is too ambiguous. What do you want to do in English? For what will you study for? Why you want to speak for next year? Let’s keep changing it.
“I want to be able to have a normal conversation in English for next year”.
That is better. But you can improve a bit more. What do you need to get this goal?
_“1. I will have conversational English classes two days per week next year.”
“2. I will make a presentation in English to one of our clients in English at the end of next year.” _
Now you have two objectives that are very specific. You can measure them, and they are achievable and motivating. Besides, you have a deadline to get it. That is the most important. If you don’t have this deadline, there is a lot of probabilities you forget it to start.
However, if they are realistic or not it depends on you only. You will have to pay your English classes and you also need at least 3 hours per week of your time. Besides, you need an English client to make a presentation. So, you are the one who has this kind of information. It is your life. Be honest with yourself and don’t overcharge yourself with a lot of objectives.
Next year, if you couldn’t reach your objectives, it doesn’t matter. Remember it is not a failure, it is a learning.
*Patience is a virtue! :D *
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