#048 Before you set goals for the new year, do this

The start of a new year can be an excellent time to set goals. But research tells us very few of us actually follow through with and achieve the goals we set for ourselves at this time.

One way we can make sure we set sticker goals is by brining greater intentionality to our goal setting. In this episode I share how you can do this using Goal Exploration. What is goal exploration? Taking the time to reflect on some of the things that are most important to us BEFORE doing our goal setting, such as values, purpose, impact, who we want to be and how we want to feel.

Download my Goal Exploration Canvas & Guide to step you trough the process.

Or if you would like support working towards your goals over time, learn about my integrative business or leadership coaching and book in for a discovery call.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I record this podcast. The Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. I'd also like to acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. This was, and always will be Aboriginal land. 

[00:00:30] Hey folks. I'm your host, Kate McCready, integrative business leadership and human potential coach meets mindful strategist for humans, uplifting people and planet. Welcome to the Leading Beings podcast, a show about elevating and expanding your awareness, potential and leadership for meaningful impact. Conscious success at a work-life or business in flow. 

[00:00:50] Join me and some incredible guests for inspiration, ideas, tips, strategies, and stories to help you grow and evolve yourself and your mission. So you can make your unique, positive difference in life at work from the inside out. Whether you're leading a team, a business, a community, an organization, a cause, or simply yourself. 

[00:01:08] Tune in as we explore what it means to be and become a leading being. 

[00:01:14] Hey folks. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. I hope you are having. A, wonderful festive holiday season. Uh, this episode should be going live between Christmas and new year's and it's a period of the year that I absolutely love. I'm generally down at the beach with my family and my husband, who is a teacher, has a lot of time off around this time and it's summer and it's good food and good company. And all the good things. Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm just so excited about this time of year. 

[00:01:53] And for me, and I know a lot of people, it's often a really lovely time to reflect on the year that was and think about what we want for the year ahead. And so goal setting New Year's resolutions naturally pop up at this time of year. 

[00:02:10] You might or might not know I've done a lot of research and have a real interest in goal-setting and there's some really awful stats around how people go with their goals and, uh, actually doing the things that they say they're going to do. It's something like, you know, 8% of us actually complete all our news here. New year's resolutions. 

[00:02:32] Um, so we don't have a very good track record amongst the general population. And part of the reason why I believe that is, is because we have these antiquated systems for goal-setting that are not really designed around individuals being inspired and motivated towards achieving things and being the people that they want to be. 

[00:02:53] Um, the good old, smart goals that we all know and love. Note sarcasm there. Um, Yeah, they, they were originally created around management objectives and operationalizing, uh, organizational goals, not individual goals. So in my personal opinion, Well for me. They don't necessarily work for me. 

[00:03:15] And so a while back I created a new framework. For not just setting goals, but working towards them and improving my Golson and game over time called mindful goals. And I speak about, um, a small part of that process, not the whole thing in episode 38 of the podcast, which I will pop in the show notes. If you want to head back and have a listen to it. 

[00:03:38] But yeah, I created myself a new goal setting framework, um, to help myself have greater or make more progress. Um, and make more meaningful progress towards goals. That really mattered to me a number of years back. And today I wanted to share with you the very first step in that process, which I also talk about a little bit in episode 38, but I'm going to go into it a bit more into it in a bit more detail today. 

[00:04:07] Uh, and that step is goal exploration. Now you're like what's goal exploration? Uh, it's a step prior to setting your goals, which is about exploring the things that are really meaningful to you. And it's essentially a brainstorming process that fleshes out the things that you should be thinking about that should be going into, or informing your goals before you do the goal setting. 

[00:04:34] Now, why is this important? Well, Have you sat down to write out your goals before, and you've got like this fresh, shiny white bit of paper, maybe some Pot-Its, some colorful, Texas, some stickers, some stationary, maybe just a blank screen on your computer. And you're like, right, goals. What am I going to do this year? What do I want to achieve? What am I resolutions? 

[00:04:55] And there's usually something around. Maybe income or, you know, Promotions or something we want to do in our job. That's often something about health and fitness, maybe something around, you know, the relationships that we have, but we kind of just sit down and go right goals year ahead doing this. What am I going to do? 

[00:05:15] And we don't take a moment to reflect and go wait. What is really important to me that I need to take stock of in order to inform these goals so that they are super meaningful and they're going to stand the test of time over the year ahead. 

[00:05:37] So, this is what goal exploration is going to help you do. And like I said, it's nothing, all that fancy, it's a pretty simple brainstorming process, but brainstorming around a few key areas. And so that you don't have to think about writing anything down in this episode, uh, as you're listening, you might be walking the dog or, you know, just lying on the couch somewhere. Hopefully. The time of year with a full belly. 

[00:06:04] Um, I actually have a free downloadable on my website. It's called the gold exploration canvas and guide. Uh, you can access that through the freebies section, uh, which is in the goodie section on my website. It's also in the pop-up or you can check it out through the show notes, but if you want to download that, it'll have all the instructions and, um, a printout for you to do of the goal exploration canvas, which is the tool that you can use. So that's all there for you. So don't feel like you need to write anything down unless you want to. 

[00:06:39] But what I'm going to do today is just a step you through the things that should go into that brainstorming and a little bit about what makes a great brainstorming exercise to, uh, so that you can do that. And that will then be the precursor to you setting your goals for 2023. Or for whatever period of 2023, you choose. 

[00:07:01] So the goal exploration canvas, it's a brainstorming tool made up of nine different sections. And the idea is once you've fleshed out these nine different sections, you'll have all the fodder you need for your goal setting. And with brainstorming, in terms of what great brainstorming looks like. It's rapid. It's something where you are focused on divergent thinking. So lots of ideas opening up and not closing down, shutting off judging. Editing. Those are the things we don't want to be doing. 

[00:07:39] So when you're going through this activity, just write down as many things that come to mind to do it as quickly as possible. And try not to think about it too much. Uh, because that's the best way to kind of get in your way and not get this done. And yeah. What you really don't want to be doing is sitting there and going oh is that, right. Is that what I want? I don't know, just let it free flow because I find often when we are brainstorming things, when we just let it free flow, that's when we get the good stuff and the juicy stuff, and maybe the stuff that we didn't expect, and you can always do multiple rounds. If you feel like you haven't gotten to the really good stuff. Um, so, you know, do one take, then come back, do another take. So that's just a bit of a high level on what good brainstorming is and what you should be thinking about as you're doing this. 

[00:08:29] So once you've got your goal exploration canvas in front of you, you'll see that there's a number of sections. And I think there's a good order to do this in. The first thing you should start with is the being section. So being, who do you want to be in the year ahead? Now, the reason I put this first is because it's so easy to go into the doing we're programmed to think about the doing, what do we want to do? What do we want to achieve, when we're thinking about our goals? But often the reason why we're doing that is because we want to be something. 

[00:09:02] And if we flip this on its head, thinking about who we want to be, what we want to be first, then you can ask yourself, okay, well, what do I need to do in order to be that? So we're flipping it around. 

[00:09:15] So, who do you want to be? Do you want to be calm? Do you want to be a kind and loving parent or partner? Do you want to be inspired? Do you want to be inspiring? Do you want to be a good friend? There's no wrong or right answers here, but I just want you to take two or three minutes. And as quickly as you can jot out all the things that you want to be. Or who you want to be. 

[00:09:44] Once you've done that. I want you to go to section number two, which is the feeling section. How do you want to feel in the year ahead? Do you want to feel excited? Do you want to feel strong? Do you want to feel like you have, um, Made the most of your year. Again, no right or wrong answers. Just write out all the things that you want to feel. 

[00:10:11] Now just, I want to give a little bit of credit here to the wonderful Danielle LaPorte. She is, uh, an author and business woman. And she wrote a book a number of years ago called the Desire Map, which is all about creating goals around feelings. I love that as an idea, but I think it's I think it's nice to extend beyond that, but I really love including the idea of how you want to feel in your goal exploration. 

[00:10:38] Then after you've done feelings, then you can come to the good old, what do you want to do? What are the things that you want to do? Do you have some projects in mind? Do you have some things that have been on the list for many years? Like, for example, I really want to write a book. It's been on my list for many years. So do you want to write a book? Do you want to travel somewhere? Do you want to embed a certain habit? I like to think of the doing things in kind of two categories. The one-off things like travel to India and the more ongoing kind of habits, routines, rituals, like, you know, um, developer. A great exercise routine, for example. So again, write down all the things that you want to do. 

[00:11:24] So being feeling doing, it's kind of flipping the script because usually we do things in order to feel things in order to be things. So we're going the other way around with this. Uh, and I do think it's important to do it in that order. So you don't get caught up on the way that you've just always thought about things and that default thinking, which is often what we do do when we launch into goal setting without having done a pre exploration. 

[00:11:51] Okay, so the next section is your values. So what are your values? Do you know them? Do you not know them? If you know them, jot them down. If you have a general sense of them , but I'm not exactly sure. Just again, brainstorm, jot them down and see what pops out. Don't think about it too much. If you've really not given values any thought at all, or you would like to give value some thought, there's a number of ways you can do it. 

[00:12:21] A really beautiful, simple way is to just look at a big list, go through the list. Circle, the ones that jump out at you. And then what I like to do from that is categorize the ones that I've circled down into, um, things that kind of make sense together in groups, and then go, okay. Well, if there was one value that represents all of these within that category, what's the value? 

[00:12:43] If you would like a big values list, there's also a free downloadable on my website. It's a big values list. It's got hundreds of values. Even one for the letter X. Yes. I know. I didn't even know there was a value that started with the lead expert. I hunted one down and there is one. So, you can go and do that. If you want to do that first, before you fill out this section. 

[00:13:07] So why it's so important to consider our values in relation to our goals is because when we just go straight to the things that we maybe want to do have or achieve, it's easy to, um, not link those things with what we really value most. And then we can end up achieving all this stuff, but it doesn't actually have this sense of alignment and fulfillment because it hasn't been aligned with our values. So that's why I think it's really important to have values as part of this exploration. And then after that, make sure that you have goals that are aligned to those. 

[00:13:47] Once you've done your values, then you can head on to section five, which is right in the middle of the canvas, which is purpose and or impact. So you might have a really clear purpose. My purpose is to enliven the positive force in people. So I would write that in the middle of that box, to be a real guiding force for my goals for the year ahead. 

[00:14:11] If you don't have a purpose, if you don't know your purpose, if you are not a hundred percent sure of your purpose, you can choose to maybe again, write down some things that might be your purpose. Or alternatively, just another way to think about it is what is the impact that you want to have? And I find this question often a lot easier than the question of what is my purpose, which feels so grand and big and overwhelming. But when you think about what's the impact I want to have while you could have simple things, like I want to be a really great influence on my kids. I want my girls to see me see an example of a strong, independent woman. I want my boys to, um, be kind and compassionate and caring or something like that. And I'm thinking about that as an impact, or it could be the impact you want to have on the people that you work with or the impact you want to have on the world, the environment. 

[00:15:05] It doesn't matter again, you can write one or two things. You can write a whole bunch of things, but whatever calls to your heart about the purpose, the impact that you want to have. 

[00:15:17] And the reason why this is here is because when we're setting our goals, we want them to be aligned to the things that we most want to show up and create and have an impact on in the world, right? Uh, that means that the goals will be meaningful to us. If we look at research on, um, what creates meaning a sense of giving back to others and doing things for others is really important. For a sense of meaning. So this is why they should be baked into your goals. 

[00:15:48] Once you've looked at your values and your purpose and your impact, then something that can be really important is just honing in on any focus areas or priorities that you already currently have, or maybe know are coming up. So what do I mean by these focus areas or priorities? Let's say for example, that you've enrolled in a PhD. 

[00:16:12] That's a pretty clear focus area or priority for the however many years ahead. So you would put PhD in your focus areas and priorities list. You might have something like, let's say you've got a kid who's going to school for the first year and a focus area of priority for you is really making sure that your kid is supported in that first year of school. You might write that down. 

[00:16:37] Let's say there's something big going on in your business. You've got a really big client that you know, is going to take up a lot of space and time over the next year. You might write down that client in this box. Because that client really needs to be a focus area and a priority. 

[00:16:54] The reason I put this section in here is again, when we sit down to do our goal setting, it's often easy to forget about the things that we've kind of already committed to, and that potentially should be part of our goals. Because we're not escaping them. You know, we've already made a commitment to doing those things. Uh, but often when we do the goal-setting, we forget about those things. We put them aside and we think about all the fun things we want to do and the cool things we want to do and not the day-to-day priorities, focus areas. And some of those priorities and focus areas might be fun and cool, but sometimes they're not. Um, and it really is important to make sure we're not forgetting about those when we do our goal setting. So write down all those focus areas, priorities that you might have for the year ahead that you know about. 

[00:17:46] Then, what I'd like you to do is head to section seven, which is key relationships. So who are the people in your life that are most important to you? The people that you want to be spending your time on. Now, there might be some crossover here with the focus areas and priorities. Like I said, let's say you have a key client in your business. They might also be a key relationship or, you know, your kids might be a key relationship. A parent might be a key relationship. Again there's no right or wrong answers here, but think about the people who you want to and should be spending time around. Spending time on that, you know, you will need to engage with in some way, and that you want to engage with in some way and build those relationships as well. That could be a really nice criteria to think about in terms of these. Which of the relationships that you want to continue and want to nurture and grow in the future. 

[00:18:45] The reason why this box is really important is because for most of us, when you talk to people, what's most important to them in the world, it's the people in their lives. The reason we show up a lot of the time is for connection and, and love. And that's so much of what life is about. So this box is making sure that you don't forget about those things and those people when you're sending your goals. Because once again, it can be easy to go off into Work things and this things and not actually bake those key relationships into your goals. 

[00:19:19] Okay, moving on. Section number eight. Your vision. What is your vision for your life, your work, your business, whatever it might be moving into the future. Now, I find long-term visioning really tricky. You might too. That's totally fine. Pick a time period that works for you. A vision could be a year out. It could be six months out. You might love longterm planning and your vision might be 10 years out. Whatever works for you. Think about your vision, what do you want work and life and business to look like. Write it out in this box. And this also might be one where you might want to spend a bit of extra time doing it outside of this exercise. So really thinking about what that vision is for the future and taking some time to dig into it. 

[00:20:09] If you don't have something really clear, just, just write what, you know, as best as you can. And what you might like to think about with the vision box. And this is why we leave it for second to last is how do all of these different things that we've just worked on: being, feeling, doing values, purpose, impact, focus areas, and priorities and key relationships. 

[00:20:31] How do these all come together to form that vision? 

[00:20:36] So write your vision out as best as you can. And then finally, we come to section nine and this section is a little bit different. This is where we are looking for alignment or misalignment. So when you think about where you are in the present moment, current state, where, when you then look at all the things you've just filled out, where is there a really strong alignment? You're already being the things that you said you wanted to be already doing the things that you said you wanted to do in terms of making an impact. All of that kind of thing. And where are the things where there's misalignment? Where is that vision that you've imagine for yourself in the future, not lining up with where you are today? What are the big gaps? 

[00:21:21] What are say the key relationships? When you look at them and you go oh, key relationship is this person, but I'm just really not spending time with that person at all. So in box number nine, I want you to write out where all the key alignments and misalignments lie. 

[00:21:41] Okay, so you've got to the end of your canvas. You filled out all the boxes. You may want to take a moment now to glance back over anything and see if there's anything where I, okay. There's this thing in my vision, but there's nothing about that in my Being box. So maybe you add something in. Or I can see something here in my focus areas or priorities. How would I want to feel in working on those focus areas or priorities? And you might add something into the feeling box. 

[00:22:10] So just take a moment to glance over them and see if, you know, based on any of the things that you've written, you want to fill out any more information on that canvas. 

[00:22:20] Now I should just take a moment to say here that depending on the depth to which you go in this process, you may want to take it onto another sheet of paper or do it in a doc or something. 'Cause the, you know, the boxes are relatively small, but um, you can do it like quick and dirty. Just, you know, only take up the amount of space that's on the canvas. And that can be a really good way to do this if you just want to get it done and you don't want to spend too much time on it and you really want to get into those goals. 

[00:22:49] Um, but again, like I said, if you want to, you. You can, you could take a couple of hours to do this if you wanted to. And it's, it's really up to you as to the, um, the detail and the attention, the intention that you bring to it. 

[00:23:03] But whatever you do, just, just do it better to do it than not do it. 

[00:23:08] So once you fill this out, You now have this beautiful brainstorm of all the things that are important to you. All the things that you want to be focusing on. And it's right there in front of you on a sheet of paper. Now you have what you need. To go and see your goals. And your goal should be informed by the things that are on this piece of paper. 

[00:23:38] So you might want to go through it and maybe highlight the things that are really jumping out to you. Again, you can do this totally intuitively. You might want to look at well, are there patterns that have come up time and time again? And then start to go, well, what are the things that matter most on here? Because one of the big things that I see that people do often with setting goals is we try and do too much. We always underestimate the amount of time we have, we overestimate the amount of time it takes to do things and we put too much on our plate before the year has even begun. 

[00:24:14] So really think about on this sheet of all the things that you said here, what is absolutely most important to you? Maybe pick maximum five things. I really think having maybe three really great goals or focus areas for the year ahead, is better than trying to do too much. Try and really make some headway makes some meaningful progress with a few things that really matter to you so that when you get to this time next year, you can look back and go, yeah, I really... I really did a great job with those things. I committed to. 

[00:24:51] Setting the goals themselves. I'm not going to talk about that so much in this episode. You may want to head back to episode 38 and listened to the mindful goals episode, particularly find the part about the iBecome framework, which is my alternative to smart goals. Having said that you might love smart goals. If you do, I don't understand you, but props to you. No, just kidding. I totally understand people that love smart goals. It's just not the way my brain works. Um, so yeah, find a goal setting framework that works for you, set yourself some goals, or like I often do with my clients, you might just set some what I call fuzzy focus areas, some general areas of your life that you want to focus on, pay attention to. 

[00:25:34] Um, you know, it might be something around, you know, changing into a more meaningful career, but without putting any hard and fast barriers or boundaries around what that is. That might sound really counterintuitive in terms of what you know, and what you've heard about in terms of goal-setting, but it can actually work really well. 

[00:25:52] There's some goal setting theory about something called distal goals. And distal goals do tend to be more overarching, more fuzzy, less specific. Uh, and you can actually have really great outcomes with district goals, particularly in terms of learning and growth and development, as opposed to achievement centered goals, where it's, I'm going to do a thing. It's more like I'm going to become or grow or develop a thing. So, yeah, a little bit of sneaky goal setting in theory in there for you. 

[00:26:23] So, once you've done this process, you should have all that. You need to set goals that are more meaningful and are going to set you up really well for the year ahead. And then, once you've done this process do take time to reflect on things. What's working? What's not working? Do you need to adapt your goals? Are they still inspiring for you? 

[00:26:48] And, and make sure that you do come back to them regularly. The other mistake I see people make with goals is that they set and forget. So if you're not coming back to them and making time to come back to these regularly, then it's so easy for them to just, you know, get caught up in life. 

[00:27:06] I hope that's helpful. I really want people to set goals that do have greater intentionality behind them. I think it's really important. 

[00:27:19] If you do this process and you come up with some great things. I really love to hear from you please snap, a photo of your goal exploration canvas and send it to me, kate@leadingbeings.Com. Or post it up on Instagram and hashtag #goalexplorationcanvas and tag @leadingbeings. I really want to see this. And then I'd love to also hear about the goals that you set off the back of this. And do you have any ahas about the goals that you should be setting, but also maybe the process that you've taken for setting goals in the past? 

[00:27:55] Another point in the mindful goals framework is reflection. So if you do this this year, it's a really great thing to do to go back and reflect upon the process and do it again the following year and see what works and what doesn't work for you. Um, I'm a huge believer in reflective practice and building that into our own habits and routines. So do that with your goals uh, as well as other parts of your life too. So, like I said, share them with me. I want to hear about it, please. I get really excited by this stuff. I'm such a nerd when it comes to things like goals and goal setting theory. So. Yeah, you'll be helping me fulfill my nerdy dreams by sharing it with me. 

[00:28:42] On that note have the most wonderful end to 2022 and an incredible start to 2023. I'm excited for the year ahead. I hope you are too. Um, and if there's anything that you'd like to hear about or learn about or guests you'd like to hear from on this podcast in the year ahead. Yeah. Again, shoot me an email. kate@leadingbeings.com. I'd love to hear from you. I reply to everyone personally. So, yeah, reach out. 

[00:29:13] Well happy goal exploration friend and see you in the new year.