Welcome to the second post in the 2014 Annual Review series (you can find the first post here). I’m going to be honest, this series, though I’m sure entertaining for some of you, is primarily written for me. I’m finding this blog is the best journal I’ve got, so this is going to be personal.
Setting goals is my favourite part of the annual review process, and I’m excited to share it publicly for the first time. I have been thinking a lot about how I wanted to approach goal-setting this time. I wanted to be ambitious but also realistic. I’m not interested (this year) in setting goals as just a point to look at and actually just aim for progress. I want to set goals and achieve them. I want to sit down for my Annual Review at the end of 2015 and tick these goals off.
So how could I set goals that were meaningful and keep me motivated throughout the year? I bought Danielle LaPorte’s The Desire Map when it first came out, I was even an affiliate for it, however, I hadn’t seriously applied the ideas to my life.
With the success I’ve had choosing one little word for the year, I decided to take another look at The Desire Map. After reading it, I’ve decided it’s the most practical way I can set goals that will actually be accomplished.
The Desire Map revolved around setting goals based on how you want to feel. You decide how you want to feel first and then make goals that will help you feel that way. This makes sense because unconsciously that’s what we’re doing, but we do it backwards and often are met with disappointment when that success or promotion or gift didn’t make us feel the way we thought it would.
So you figure out a few key feelings you want to feel throughout the year, your Core Desired Feelings [CDF], and base your goals on them.
My one little word is basically my attitude for the year, it’s how I approach everything, I find. The CDF’s can guide what it is I approach.
So for 2015, I have 4 Core Desired Feelings:
Sexy – I want to feel great in my body again.
Affluent – I don’t want to worry about money.
Galvanized – I want to feel stimulated and excited by the work I do.
Open – I want to go with the flow of life instead of fighting it.
So keeping these feelings in mind, I figured out 12 goals for the year. Each goal touches upon at least one of my CDF’s and is within my 6 life categories:
Relationships
Go to 1 different event a month
Visit my friends at least 4 times this yearWork
Blog 2x/week
Pull in 10 leads a month for PHOENIX|DHealth
Fit back into my clothes
Take a fitness classFinance
Double my savings
[personal income goal]Personal Development
Coding Project [more on this in the new year]
Take 3 classesService
Volunteer with 1 organization consistently
Give up my 23rd birthday for charity: water
Sharing these goals publicly is so nerve-racking! I’ve chosen not to reveal my personal income goal but otherwise, this is really all there is to my goals.
In the past, I have set very few goals and too many goals. Experience has taught me that 12 goals (or 2 goals per category) is a manageable number for me: it’s ambitious and pulls me out of my comfort zone without being overly stressful.
I hope to blog about these goals throughout the year and I’m also very excited to reveal my Coding Project in 2015. Honestly, I’m excited about everything in 2015. I’m also pretty sure I say that about every new year at the end of the year, for different reasons though.
It feels like a completely new chapter of life, you know. I’m single, I have a new business, I’m in a new town, I just came back from an amazing vacation. It’s all new territory. I want to feel sexy and affluent and galvanized and open, and it feels great to shape my goals around those things. Because we forget things but we don’t forget how they made us feel.
Tomorrow (New Year’s Eve! My birthday!), I’ll talk about my one little word for 2015. (Edit: Here it is!)