The end of a month is a good time for reviewing goals and any resolutions you might have set for the new year. For some people, this can be a depressing exercise as they see all the things that they did not get done. Don’t get down on yourself! Use the progress you’ve made (or the lack thereof) to set some new goals and to decide on your next steps!
Here are my 10 tips for reviewing goals and resolutions:
1 – read everything you wrote at the beginning of the month. See my post about setting goals here. Maybe it’s because I am a teacher, but I find that “grading” or “scoring” things gives me so much clear information about what is working well and what might need to change or be improved in some way. Try it – give yourself a rating of 1 – 3 on each goal. A 3 = you achieved that goal. A 2 = you are working on that goal and made some progress. A 1 = you didn’t do anything toward that goal.
2 – while giving each goal a rating, try very hard not to get down on yourself. No one can get everything done all the time. The idea here is to honestly assess your progress and to decide what is still most important to you and what might need to be saved for another time
Back to the teaching example — a student’s bad score on a test or assignment can be disheartening and frustrating. But that number is just a piece of data. Figuring out the story behind the data and reflecting on next steps is where you can begin to overcome that frustration and get some clarity about what to do next.
3 – if you got a 1 in anything, that is great, believe it or not! This is where you can learn and grow the most. The first thing to do with your scores of 1 is to truly evaluate whether or not that goal is still important to you. If not, drop it. It might have seemed like a good idea when you set the goal, but maybe it means nothing to you now. Just drop it. And drop the guilt about it.
4 – If you scored a 1 but the goal is still important to you, ask yourself two questions:
- 1 – would this goal be more appropriate to work toward at another time of the year? For instance, if your goal is to organize your closet, but January is a busy month for you at work or with your kids, maybe closet-organizing is not so important to do in January. Could you move that goal to some time in the spring or summer instead?
- 2 – what baby steps could you take toward that goal? Which brings me to tip #5.
5 – I have found that baby steps are the key. See my post about baby steps and time management here. It always seems like you are making no or very slow progress toward achieving a goal while you are taking those baby steps, but at the end of a week or a month, you will be amazed at how much you actually accomplished. To get back to that closet example — if you spend 5-10 minutes per day on organizing your closet, you will feel like it’s going to take forever. But those minutes add up and give you momentum for completing the task. If you spent 5 minutes just five a days a week, you would have put in 1 hour and 40 minutes by the end of the month. If you spent 10 minutes just five days a week, you would have put in 3 hours and 20 minutes. Finding those blocks of time in a busy schedule might have been near impossible, but 5-10 minutes is not impossible.
6 – back to the goals in which you scored a 1 — it’s time to seriously evaluate whether or not that goal is right for you. For instance, if your goal was to learn to speak Italian and you have done nothing toward that goal, ask yourself some questions:
- Why do I want to learn to speak Italian?
- How will it help me?
- How will it help other people that I love?
- Is this a goal that is possible for me to achieve right now?
- Should I save this goal for another time of the year or another time in my life?
7 – If you decide that the goal is not right for you right now, but you still think it would be good to achieve it some day, put it on a “Someday” list. I keep a “Someday” list for lots of things — books I want to read, places I want to go, restaurants and stores I want to visit, recipes I want to try, etc. Add a category for goals you want to achieve!
You may decide that this goal just isn’t that important for you, so cut your losses and move on! I know I’ve said this before, but I am hereby giving you permission to just take it off your list and don’t feel guilty. There is never enough time to do everything. It’s so important to choose what really matters to you and the people you love, and to focus your time and energy on those goals.
8 – If the goal really is something that you want to achieve, it’s time to start thinking about those baby steps. What is one small thing you could do that would help you move toward that goal? Back to the learning to speak Italian example — here are some baby steps that would help:
- Google “how to speak Italian” for websites, apps, programs, etc.
- Check out Babbel and pricing
- Google a site where you can listen to Italian speakers while reading the words on the screen (maybe while they are reading something?)
- Ask friends or your Facebook community for ideas and resources — you never know who might be a great resource for helping you find other resources!
Get the idea? Make a list of small, easy to do tasks that could be done in 10-15 minutes. Then get started today. Do one task. Tomorrow, do another. For tasks like googling resources, know that this is a task that you might do daily for several days since you will find so many resources to check out. That’s okay. The object of the game here is to make daily, incremental progress toward learning to speak Italian, and finding resources will take some time.
9 – if you got a 2 in anything, that’s great too! This shows that you are making progress toward the goal. What can you continue to do to move toward achieving that goal? If your goal was to lose ten pounds, and you only lost eight, congratulations — you are on track! Think about what is working for you in achieving that goal and what you might want to change or improve.
10 – if you got a 3 in anything, that’s awesome! Is that goal something that can now be part of your routine and move off of the goals list? For instance, if your goal was to write morning pages every day, is this now just part of what you do in the morning? If so, it can move off the goals list because it is now part of your life.
Now take all of this information you’ve gathered on your goal progress and make a list of new goals for the next month! You might also list the baby steps you will take first toward each goal. Being able to cross those baby steps off your list as they are achieved builds momentum and helps you keep moving forward to achieving those goals!
I would love to hear how this works for you!