Simple strategies for making and achieving goals in 2021: converting abstract ideas into concrete actions
To say that 2020 has been a topsy-turvy year is a wild understatement. But, a couple of days ago, in preparation for the coming year, I was looking over my 2020 goals and was pleasantly surprised to see that quite a few of them had come into fruition in some form or another.
For instance, one goal was to read 52 books this year. I haven't quite gotten there, but I've read 43 and will probably get to 45 before December's over. A huge leap up from the 26 I read last year. I also wanted to instil an everyday exercise routine, and managed to fit in some form of exercise most days of 2020. In the weeks and months following the birth of my second baby in February, a short walk around the neighbourhood constituted exercise. But, as I regained my strength, this has evolved into high intensity training that is more strenuous than what I was doing pre-pregnancy.
But this didn't just happen by itself: I have been honing techniques over the past 7+ years, trying to learn from what worked and what didn't. There have been many (easier?) years when I haven't managed to achieve any of my goals. So, what was the difference between those years and 2020? What did I do this year that worked? And how? How do I turn goals from abstract ideas and hopes into concrete actions?
Step 1: I make a list of goals:
When? I normally start thinking of ideas during November, and try to make a concrete plan over December. It doesn't necessarily have to coincide with the end of the year, but I think this time is one of natural reflection and I like the clean slate-ness and freshness of the new year. I've also heard of others using their birthday as a goal-setting time. Point is, it could be anytime you choose.
How? Okay, this sounds simple - but what if you struggle to come up with goals? What if you find this whole process a bit daunting? Where do you start?
First, I would offer this: simplify: Gretchen Rubin (see her blog post on this idea here) suggests coming up with a word or theme of the year. My word of 2020 was "acceptance" - which is really funny for me to reflect on now because that's exactly what was required this year.
Another idea that expands on this idea slightly is to come up with a phrase of the year:
For 2021, I'm going with two phrases:
"Be all in" and "Choose the bigger life" (a phrase and idea that I got from Gretchen Rubin, which really resonates with me because I've had a habit of choosing the smaller life in the past)
I really like the simplicity of a word or a phrase, because they are easy to remember, and short so that you can write them down anywhere you'd like: in your planner, on your laptop background, a post-it on your mirror. This makes it easy to have your core idea (or ideas) accessible. Anytime I feel a bit lost I can just read my phrase or word of the year and direct my thoughts to what I'm really aiming to achieve.
Another thing I like doing is anytime I have a hope, or wish, or thought, or desire for something to be better - I write it down. I like using the Notes app on my phone, where I have a goals and ideas file, to quickly take down anything that might be useful later when I'm sitting down properly articulating my goals.
Laura Vanderkam (see her blog post on this here) also suggests to visualise what you would like to say in your performance review next year (or, more broadly, what you would like your life to look like by December of the next year). I try to imagine how I will feel at the end of next year when I'm reviewing these goals and what my life look like then. What would I like to have done? What would I like to have more (or less) of in my life? What experiences would I like to have had?
Next, in November or December, I take this list of notes and categorise the goals or ideas into different areas of my life: personal, career, family and relationships, and home, for instance.
I would also sub-divide into:
"Routine goals" - ie things that I want to do everyday (for example, exercise, connect with people, have time outside, read)
"Big goals" - ie longer-term goals that will then (later) need to be broken down into smaller discrete tasks that I would tackle, month by month, week by week, day by day.
What? An example of a goal of mine in 2020 was to "improve my physical space", which I called: "converting house to home." But then, to turn this from a scary-sounding, unachievable ambition, I divided this broader goal into smaller, slightly more defined, sub-goals:
Design and maintain a regular cleaning routine, involving maintaining the house in a state that's ready for visitors (clean-up messes straight away, and clean the bathroom, vacuum and mop each week, and promptly remove rubbish).
Declutter all areas (especially public areas) of the house.
Sell items as I declutter them, or give them to charity - so that the clutter is removed from the house as quickly as possible.
Become as paperless as possible (go through current documents, scan the important ones, and remove the rest. Develop a routine of making any new paperwork electronic).
Enact small ways to decorate our space (eg collect greenery from outside and put into a vase, fill picture frames with current photos).
Spend less and acquire less.
Step 2: I link my goals to my everyday:
So now I have my list of "Routine goals", as well as "Big goals", which I have further broken down into sub-goals. It would be (and has been for me in the past) very easy to let this list fester in the bottom of a drawer, only to re-emerge at the end of 2021. So, what next? They key is in forming the everyday around these goals.
In terms of the "Routine goals", there will be habits that I've built previously, that I want to maintain. These already have a place in my day (for instance, I write from 6:30 - 7 am each day, I exercise at 10 am). The ones I need to focus on are the ones that haven't yet found a time in my day (for instance, learning German).
How do I find a place in my day for these new "Routine goals"?
Define what "doing" the habit means: eg I might say to myself that I need to watch one 10 minute video per day in German, and spend 10 minutes reviewing any new words or grammar. If I complete this 20 minutes, then I can tick off learning German for the day.
Determine the best time to do the habit: eg going with the learning German example: I know that this is a difficult thing for me to do. I know I work best in the morning, so it would make sense to tackle this task as early as possible in the day. I would think about my early morning routine and whether I could add another 20 minutes to it somehow.
Track your progress: I know that I work better and am much more likely to achieve a task, if I find some way of tracking it. For me, it's simply checking a box in my planner. This gives me so much satisfaction and really helps me keep with my habits.
What about the "Big goals"?
Well, we've already broken them down into smaller, more manageable sub-goals, so what next?
Some of these sub-goals will actually be "Routine goals": for eg, from the example above about converting from house to home, one of the sub-goals was to develop and maintain a regular cleaning routine. After development, this is just a routine that needs to be incorporated into my life as I would for any other "Routine goal" (see above).
Other sub-goals will require longer-term planning. For instance, if I want to declutter my entire house, I might go through this series of steps:
Make a list of all areas of the house that need decluttering
Make a plan for what I'm going to do with things to be decluttered (eg a sell pile - where will I sell things? A donate pile - where will I donate it?). Will I remove things as I go or do it all at the end?
Determine how much time I would have per day or per week to spend decluttering
Make a time estimate plan on how long it will take to declutter each area, as well as removing the items, and when I foresee this being completed (eg January for the kitchen, February for the bathroom etc)
Add my decluttering plan to my monthly to-do lists, which will then filter down to my weekly and daily plans as the time comes (I am planning another post detailing how I organise my life at the monthly, weekly, and daily level, as well as how I organise all the information in my life - be sure to check back in for that soon!).
Step 3: I follow my daily plan, but give myself grace:
I love planning, I love lists, and I love the satisfaction of completing a task to my pre-defined standard, and ticking it off. But I still don't achieve everything I set out to everyday. This sometimes leads to multiple days, weeks, and months where I don't make any progress towards some of my goals. For instance, this year I had the goal of improving my physical health by exercising everyday, but some days, especially in the weeks after the birth of my baby, I was too tired, or just simply lacking the time to exercise - even to go on a walk. Those weeks and months, I really had to pivot my goals: okay, I couldn't do high intensity training, I couldn't go on a half an hour walk, but could I go for a five minute walk? Could I step outside onto the balcony and do 10 knee raises? Almost all of the time, there was something I could do. Even something so miniscule that it felt like it was doing nothing, could enable me to at least tick off my goal for the day and feel like I was doing something. Then, you know what happened? Things changed (hint: they always do): my baby started sleeping through the night, I was healing well from the birth, I suddenly had more energy. I started taking short walks again, then longer walks, then I started doing post-natal exercise videos on Youtube, then I worked up to higher intensity videos. It doesn't matter that I didn't do extreme exercise everyday of 2020, the point is, I had faith in the habit, and faith that even tiny micro-steps would bring me that much closer to achieving my goals.
Okay, so there you have it. This is my (somewhat long-winded) three-step process for making and achieving goals. I hope that if you've read this far, you've taken something from this and that I've provided some tactics that you might like to try when planning out your 2021.
How do you make and achieve goals? Please leave your tips and thoughts in the comments below.
As this is my first ever blog post, I welcome any feedback on this post, as well as anything you would like to hear more about.
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