Anyone who knows me understands why I’m writing this post. I’m a person who takes on huge projects, concepts, tasks and gets them done. Often all at once. Most recently, this includes a Ph.D. program and a cross-country move while working full-time. Some of the tactics that I use might work for you, so I thought I’d share them here.
Your mileage may vary. I’m an Enneagram type 3 – the Achiever. What the Type 3 does is get shit done. This is because large swaths of my personality are goal-oriented. I learned a long time ago that I have to be very cognizant of the goals that I’m targeting. If I don’t set my own goals, I will follow the “shoulds” and expectations that come with social norms. Well, who wants that? Not me! However, it’s likely that many of us have these unexamined “goals” set for ourselves, and it’s worth taking a look at them now and then.
I’m writing this now because I’m beginning my process of setting my annual goals, which I do with each New Year. This process takes the better part of a month to complete because it will shape the way I move for the next 90 days, if not the next 365.
I do all of this work in my journals and my planner. I really like the planners that are set up to span the length of 90 days or three months, rather than a whole year. Science shows that we can’t really conceptualize goals that go beyond 3 months at a time, and it’s useful to revisit big goals more frequently – rather than “set em and forget em” like most of us do each New Year.
Step 1 – Envision Your Definition of Success
Journaling or meditating, envision a sensory, tangible moment when you know you’ve “made it.” When you know you will feel like you’ve met your goal and succeeded. (So, instead of “lose 30 lbs”, think about how you’d feel in a body that was 30 lbs. lighter. Is it really the weight? Or maybe success is fitting into a favorite item of clothing? Maybe success is being able to run a 5K, rather than a specific number on the scale.) Think about the moment when your heart swells with joy and pride at having succeeded, what does that look like?
One of the goals that I’ve set for myself in 2024 is to “see my book in the wild.” In order to experience that moment, that means that I need to not only get a book that I have written published, but I also have to do sufficient marketing in order to see it on a bookshelf in a bookstore, or in someone’s hands at the airport. This moment is my “North Star,” and I evaluate many smaller decisions based on that one vision.
Step 2 – Know your Why
Why do you want to acheive what you want to acheive? Why is it important to you? This is a “journaling” part of the work because you need to know deeply why this is important in order for it to be meaningful enough to sustain long-term effort. Something that doesn’t have a solid “Why” can be easy to drop over time.
To revisit my “North Star” goal of seeing my book in the wild, my why is complex. I have been writing and publishing my work for years, and I’ve thought of myself as an author for a long time. However, until I have an actual book out with my name on the spine (as opposed to an anthology), it’s hard for me to let that sink in. One of the “hats” I’m trying on professionally is Author – and in order for that to work, it has to generate some income. This North Star goal also supports that requirement.
Step 3 – Know How You Want to Feel
Sometimes it’s hard to define precisely what it is you want to do in the coming year. Maybe your biggest goals are a few years off (such as saving up for a house in 2025), or maybe you have too much on your plate to set a big audacious goal.
One of my favorite ways to conceptualize and plan for the months or year ahead is to set an intention for how I want to feel. By naming 3 emotions, and then aligning actions that support those feelings, you can feel like you’ve accomplished a great deal, even without a huge addition to the resume.
For 2024, one of the main things I want to feel and experience is contentment and peace. I want to have a regulated nervous system that is mostly not activated in flight/fight. I want my lizard brain to get super sleepy.
Step 4 – Identify the timeline for your vision
Is there a specific timeline for your goal? If it’s a graduation or something like that, there’s likely a series of due dates and an academic calendar that shapes this goal. If you’re trying to fit into your favorite suit by your brother’s wedding, then the wedding date is the end date for your goal.
If there is no external deadline for your goal, it’s time to think about a specific and realistic timeframe for your goal. I like to do things in Year-Quarter-Month-Week-Day increments. So if the goal date is “By the end of 2024”, that’s perfect. If it’s longer than that, you’ll just have more incremental milestones than a single year might.
For my “see my book in the wild” goal, I have lots of little incremental goals that lead toward it. It may not be realistic to think that a book could go all the way through to publication in a single calendar year. I’m going to tentatively hang a “by the end of 2024” on that goal, with the understanding that it’s possible it might bump out to 2025. (This has been a North Star of mine since 2012, it’s okay if it bumps out!)
Step 5 – Identify the major milestones between here and there
When I moved across the country, I called these “jumps”. I had a mental hunter-jumper course, and I could only focus on the next jump – the one right ahead of me – not the whole course.
This is important for staving off overwhelm. For me, a Jump is often time-bound, or some sort of milestone that a number of little things lead up to. So, for selling my house, one “jump” was “listing live on zillow”, with a larger series of activities leading up to it: staging the house, the photographer appointment, and signing all the paperwork with the realtor. By focusing only on that one “jump”, I didn’t get overwhelmed by the idea of finding a new place to live on the other end of the sale.
For my “book in the wild” goal, some of the jumps include sending out non-fiction book proposals, finishing a revision of my novel, and growing my marketing reach to 10,000 people. These are major items that require several tasks over time to meet them.
Step 6 – Break those milestones down into smaller steps
Now, under each “jump”, list out the tasks that take you from one to the next. It’s okay if you don’t know a lot of the later details. You’re mostly looking at the first handful of milestones for now. You want to think of the tasks that you need to cover to get over the next few. You might even consider some of the “course changes” from one area to another. So, I had a separate “course” to get my house in Georgia sold, then a second one for getting settled in New Mexico. Those are very different sets of activities, even though they both lead toward the same north star of “feeling at home.”
If we look just at the milestone of sending out non-fiction proposals mentioned above, tasks that fall under that are:
- research publishers that accept unagented queries and make a prioritized list
- research what they require for their proposals
- draft the proposal
- Complete Market research
- Outline the book
- Get it edited/reviewed
- draft sample chapters
- submit proposals (5 per week)
Step 7 – Make a plan for the next 90 days
You now have all of the information you need to make a 90-day plan. Create a parking lot for the Jumps and Courses that happen later in the year, and focus your attention in just the next 3 months. One of the reasons why this process takes me so long, is because I also look at the actual calendar and the plans that I’ve already got for the next three months. It’s not super realistic for me to plan to get a ton of writing done over the holidays, for example. Or to plan for my weight loss goals to be on my mind while I’m on vacation! Let the calendar’s reality help shape what realistic steps you can take toward your big goal.
Let’s go back to my non-fiction book proposal example. In the next 90 days, I can realistically research publishers and their proposal requirements. I can also start my draft proposal and sample chapters. Maybe my realistic 90-day goal is to have it in an editor’s hands by the end of that 90 days, leaving the submitting for the next 3-month period.
Step 8 – Make a plan for the next 30 days
This is getting really tactical at this point. But it’s important to do this so that you don’t get discouraged if timelines slip, or if the big goal feels too distant and unreal. Having these nearer-term goals can make a distant goal feel more present and tangible.
Again, using the calendar and my existing life plans, what’s realistic for me to get done in the next 30 days? I think I can do the outline part of the proposal, and write the sample chapter. That will help me better hone the rest of the proposal and the market research. It will also set me up for success with my 90-day plan.
Step 9 – Make a plan for the next 7 days
Because the coming week is pretty easy to visualize and plan for, it’s realistic to know what you can accomplish in that time. Some weeks absolutely nothing happens, and that’s okay too. Especially since it’s likely that you have several goals all going on at once. (I moved and worked on my dissertation and worked full time in the same 90 day period, they did not all happen all in the same week!) Revisiting your emotional state, how you feel right now, and how you want to feel, revisiting your current week, make a realistic and reasonable task list for this week.
For my non-fiction book proposal example, I’m going to draft the outline part of the proposal this week, and decide which chapter is going to be the sample chapter. If that seems pretty measly compared to the list I’ve already written, it happens to be early December while I’m writing this, so I also have to do a number of tasks to get holiday gifts completed, boxed up and ready to ship before next week. So a number of my tasks are around that time-bound deadline, rather than this bigger, longer-term goal.
Step 10 – Make a Task List for Today
Now I know what I want to accomplish this week, this month, this quarter and this year, but what am I doing about it today? I do this each morning while I drink my coffee. I use my planner to spot my biggest priorities and the items that are the most important to me. I check deadlines, and I plan ahead for the rest of the week. Then I list a reasonable (4? ish?) number of items to tackle for that day.
My To Do list today includes drafting this blog post, doing meal planning for the week and grocery shopping, sending a few emails, and making some Christmas gifts. Because my executive function hiccups mean I sometimes forget things, I also add regular must-do’s, like running my dog around the yard and watering plants.
Notice anything? Yep! That big goal of the non-fiction book proposal didn’t make the cut today. That doesn’t mean it’s not important to me, just that it’s not highest priority today. It will be back on the list tomorrow, rest assured.
(Also, it’s useful to note that this blog post is actually contributing to that North Star goal, anyway. Because it’s part of building my audience! Speaking of which, if you haven’t subscribed to my email newsletter – please do! I send out one annual holiday newsletter each December. I don’t sell or share emails. I will definitely be sending an email to that list if I publish a book, though!)
Step 11 – Revisit your Goals, your Why, and your Feelings Weekly, Monthly, and Quarterly
Things change. Priorities shift. Circumstances change. You never know. Goals you set now might be completely moot points by the end of the month. A change in income, a change in relationship status, a change in the weather might shift those priorities that you so carefully set. This is why I reread and revisit my “Why” and my “feelings” as well as my north stars on a super regular basis.
This winter is colder than I anticipated. Chopping firewood and winterizing the house just got way more important on that to-do list than I thought it was going to when I made the list originally. Last week, I had strep throat. That shifted around all sorts of priorities for the week (such as skipping my weekly video on Youtube), and then consequently, for the month.
My North Stars are that. They don’t move around a whole lot. But the various milestones that I’ve set up to get to them may shift from month to month, or quarter to quarter based on what’s going on in my life and what new information arises in the course of pursuing them. By building in this revisiting and revision process, you allow yourself to both keep focused on your big goal, and to be agile in the face of reality.
Step 12 – Create Visible Reminders
I like to keep my biggest goals front and center all of the time. My lock screen on my phone usually reflects my biggest current goal. I find a meme or a picture that represents me already having reached the goal. I used a “you did it!” with a graduation cap when I was focusing on my dissertation. Right now, I have a meme shared by an author who found their book in the wild as my lock screen. This means that every single time I look at my phone, I am reminded of my biggest goal.
For the dissertation, I also created a little poster that hangs on my office door. My cohort mates referred to it as my “Candyland board.” This poster outlines each of the jumps between starting my dissertation proposal all the way through to defense. I put silly stickers on each place as I celebrate clearing each hurdle. This practice not only shows me clearly what the next “jump” is, but also how far I’ve already come along the journey. This keeps the three-year-long dissertation process in view, and makes it feel more doable. (And it was!)
Another Tip – Checklists for Ongoing Work
This isn’t about meeting big, hairy goals, but it is another thing that I find very helpful in terms of getting shit done, including self-care. For the last ten years, at least, I have run monthly checklists of things that help me feel good and stay even-keel in life. These are the things that are easy to get too busy to make time for, or things that get lost in larger goals. Sometimes, they themselves support larger, longer-term goals.
Here’s my current monthly checklist for 2023:
- Woods time / City Time
- Experience Beauty
- Submit one piece of writing to a publisher
- Spend time connecting 1:1 with a friend
- Finish writing a chapter or story
- Car maintenance
- Yard project
- Inside house project
- Exit my comfort zone
- Make a new local friend
- Check propane levels in tank
I tend to update these each year, and it’s time to revisit them. You might notice the writing and submitting tasks. Those are how and why I have stories in anthologies and magazines to date. I can easily let my house get deprioritized, so having 1 project per month makes it easier to stay on top of maintenance. These are things that need to happen on a regular cadence, regardless of the jumps and goals of my other life. Experiencing beauty, connecting with friends, spending time in the woods and time in the city are all elements of my mental and emotional health. Ensuring that I pay attention to them regularly allows me to function better.
I would like to share this if that is ok.